


Wounds of Structure, Wounds of Distance

by chimeraproblems



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Alcohol, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Polyamory, WaHH spoilers, messy breakups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23566378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chimeraproblems/pseuds/chimeraproblems
Summary: The Three Sages, then and now. A series of glimpses at the political and personal decisions that broke their relationship. An exploration of the emotional consequences of Wild and Horned Hermit. Heartbreak and lies, forgiveness and resentment, and long, long centuries.
Relationships: Hakurei Reimu/Yakumo Yukari, Ibaraki Kasen & Onozuka Komachi, Ibaraki Kasen/Hakurei Reimu, Ibaraki Kasen/Matara Okina, Ibaraki Kasen/Yakumo Yukari, Matara Okina/Yakumo Yukari, Saigyouji Yuyuko/Yakumo Yukari, Yakumo Ran/Yakumo Yukari, Yakumo Yukari/Matara Okina/Ibaraki Kasen
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	1. Chapter 1

**Tenna 4 - 1683 CE - 202 years before the establishment of the Great Hakurei Barrier**

Warm shadows adorned every corner of Yukari Yakumo’s bedroom. A single candelabra cast its glow through the haze. Incense drifted heavily. The smoke lent tangibility to the aura of triumph and carnal satisfaction that wreathed the bedroom’s occupants. There was little movement but heavy breathing. They were spent, blissfully, the three of them.

Their wisdom as the Three Sages of Gensokyo was lauded, the Youkai Expansion Project progressed smoothly, their foes were in disarray, the rains nourished the land - why not celebrate? And what novelty this form of celebration still held. It was by no means the first time the other Sages had shared Yukari’s bed. But tonight, it felt, they had outdone themselves. Such a sublime harmony of effort and need and satiety, from such a simple extension of the emotional bond woven between them over their many, many years of joint leadership.

“Your hands-” Kasen Ibaraki broke the silence with an exultation of quiet awe. She propped herself up slowly, between deep breaths. The stubs of her horns gleamed in the candlelight. ”I felt a lot more than two. How did- How many hands do you have?”

From the foot of the bed came the muffled laughter of Okina Matara. She rolled onto her back. She had fallen in counterpoint to her fellow Sages. “Permit the lady her mysteries, Kasen.”

Yukari, in her repose, reached to the other two. With her left hand, she threaded her fingers through Kasen’s fiery hair, tracing around her horns, and pulled her closer. With her right, she clasped Okina’s foot - the closest part of her, thanks to her orientation on the bed - and began to knead it with a leisurely determination. Okina and Kasen both chorused sighs of satisfaction.

Yukari cherished them in this intimate moment, this hazy night, this good year. She knew better than most what it was to be in deep harmony with another - the past several centuries had blessed her with Yuyuko. Now she found herself sustaining another harmony between these two. It had its own character, its own resonance. She found kindred spirits in her Sages in many ways - they, who had shed their humanity long ago; they, whose justice aligned; they, who struggled as much against their own minds as against the world’s current.

This year was not a struggle. This year was a victory. Victories were to be celebrated.

Yukari pulled her Sages closer and answered at last. “More than enough for the both of you. Try counting them this time. You may be surprised.”

There would be other victories. There would be other years in which their support, their commitment, their harmony - their love - was practically tangible.

They would not be better than this.

* * *

**Heisei 29 - 2017 CE - 132 years after the establishment of the Great Hakurei Barrier**

Okina Matara soaked in hot water up to her bare shoulders. Around her were a series of thermal pools and honeycombed paths between them, made more hospitable to bathing but not to the point they lost their natural charm. The hot springs sat in a clearing a short walk from the backyard of the Hakurei shrine. The trees around the clearing showed the motley regalia of foliage that had blossomed ceaselessly through an overzealous spring and now found themselves thrust directly into a tenuous autumn. It was a fascinating consequence of her machinations this year. The Hakurei shrine was not the only place in Gensokyo that had been robbed of a summer.

She sank down to her chin and sighed blissfully. It had been a good day, by her body’s metrics, but that meant she had pushed herself to make it a _busy_ day. The water soothed her joints. A soak in the springs, she hoped, would mitigate the consequences tomorrow of such a lively evening tonight. She still found herself pleasantly buzzed though the gathering had already wound down.

It had been ages since she last crashed a party. It felt invigorating, to have so much uncertainty and worry centered around her - to be witnessed in an impenetrable cloak of mystery and grandeur. There was a certain satisfaction as well in having an incident of her own under her belt. It had given her the opportunity to test firsthand this era’s defenses. They were adequate to defeat her, and that, too, was its own satisfaction. In her own grand appearance and grander defeat, she had delivered a message to every overly ambitious faction testing the waters of Gensokyo - _her_ Gensokyo. And on top of it all, now she had discovered that the Hakurei shrine had _hot springs._ All in all, an unmitigated success.

So, why couldn’t she feel it? What prevented her from simply _basking_ in that satisfaction?

“If you’re going to use the springs, a donation is appreciated,” came the voice of the current Hakurei shrine maiden. She approached along the path with a towel tucked under her arm.

Okina sat up to face her and gave a sly smile. “My radiant presence isn’t enough?”

“Oh, goddammit, it’s you,” grunted Reimu Hakurei. “I didn’t recognize you with your hair up. Of course it’s not enough. You didn’t even help clean up and now you’re spoiling my afterparty dip. Plus I had to dip into the shrine’s sake stock, since Kasen didn’t want to come. Plus you broke summer. That’s at least five donations alone.”

“There are other pools here,” noted Okina. She knew, of course, that her fellow Sage had been a fixture of the shrine of late, but she hadn’t realized Kasen had so established herself that she now regularly provided liquors to gatherings. She felt a mild pang of jealousy with an undercurrent of nostalgia.

Reimu paused her approach near the lip of the pool and looked away with a scowl. “That’s the best one.”

“Don’t let me spoil it, then,” laughed Okina. She made a welcoming gesture towards the submerged rock shelf across from her in the pool. “I wanted a chance to speak with you again, anyway.”

“Last thing I need’s another damn youkai latching onto my springs,” Reimu grumbled, but set her towel down and began unfastening her sleeves. Tempting as it was to watch another woman undress, Okina was aware that she was an interloper here. It wouldn’t do to give Reimu cause to dislodge her.

Okina turned her gaze to the stars for the sake of her modesty. This close to the Barrier, she could glimpse a subtle refraction in their light. The refracted starlight was visible only if you knew what to look for - it was otherwise functionally intangible. A short distance to the northeast, perhaps even just outside the season-spangled treeline, and those very same trees would simply start repeating themselves indefinitely. She allowed herself a bit of idle speculation whether one could eventually outpace the epicenter of the Hakurei shrine’s prolonged spring within the Barrier’s loop-lands. It was a curious speculative interplay of her own machinations, new and old. She was content to let it remain a mystery, unresolved and sacred.

“By the by, since when does the Hakurei shrine have hot springs?” asked Okina.

She heard Reimu sucking air through her teeth in reminiscence. “It’s been almost a decade, now. From what I understand, there’s some kind of reactor way down in the underground, and this is where the excess energy comes up. The hell raven who runs it is pretty nice, now that she’s mellowed down some.”

“Ah, yes. Yukari fielded that particular incident, did she not? In winter, even.”

“She just pushed me. Wasn’t _her_ down there getting roped into drinking contests against oni,” grumbled Reimu.

Okina smirked. “I’m given to understand that’s a regular occurance with you.”

“Only when Suika crashes here. Yuugi doesn’t come up to the surface, thankfully.” Reimu lowered herself into the pool with a soft groan. Her tone, when she continued, carried a whiff of boast. “Still, that’s, what, two out of the Big Four? I guess that’s more oni than most get to drink against.”

Two? Okina held her tongue out of an enticing curiosity. Reimu didn’t seem to be lying. Which could only mean that Kasen - Kasen Ibaraki, Kasen who was once Ibaraki-douji, slayer of men, feaster of hearts, biggest of the Big Four of the Mountain - _hadn’t told her._ This made her present attachment to the shrine all the more intriguing. This mystery wasn’t just sacred - it was downright _juicy._ What could her fellow Sage be planning?

“We should all be so fortunate to have such excitement in our lives,” said Okina. “And it seems you have Yukari to thank for the impetus. Logistics have always been a strength of hers.”

“Mm,” grunted Reimu. She rested her head back against the lip of the pool, eyes closed with an expression that still betrayed tension, or perhaps irritation.

Okina mirrored her pose but kept her gaze open, back upon the stars and the darkness between them. “We must be nearly under her house. Isn’t it around here, in the Barrier?”

“Like I said,” Reimu said, “I don’t need another youkai latching onto my springs.”

Okina laughed. It came out with a bitterness she hadn’t anticipated. Perhaps what still rankled about her incident’s successful resolution was the method that brought about her defeat. “First she doesn’t tell me about these delightful hot springs, then she shows you how to harvest the lifeless energy of _doyou_ to defeat my seasonal countermeasures? You’d think there’d be courtesy between the Sages.”

It didn’t merely rankle, now that she had it clearly in focus. It _hurt._ They had been distant years, certainly - hadn’t that been her courtesy to Yukari? This was her repayment.

“I would’ve figured out how to use the border between seasons eventually,” said Reimu. She still hadn’t opened her eyes, as if she ignored Okina’s presence enough she’d simply disappear.

“I don’t doubt that,” said Okina. “You’ve a knack for borders, it seems. How much has she helped with that, I wonder? Do you think Yukari took this much active interest in your predecessors?”

“I wish she wouldn’t!” sputtered Reimu. “It’s hard enough getting worshippers out here!”

Now Okina was certain the shrine maiden hadn’t been lying about Kasen - she had no skill in it. It was far too easy to provoke a reaction from her. There was no sport to it. She laughed, and again it was bitter. “Oh, there’s no shame in being an object of her fascination. Take it from me. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Reimu reddened, though whether it was from Okina’s insinuation or the heat of the thermal pool was anyone’s guess. “What did you want to talk to me about, anyway?”

Okina looked away with an empty smile. “Only to be careful with your heart. You’ll never be first in hers. Take it from me. If you’re lucky, you might live long enough to see her show her next fling how to defeat you.”

Reimu maintained an irritated silence. It was unsurprising. Reimu had barely met her, and even then only for the purposes of thrashing a divine adversary to right the course of Gensokyo’s seasons. Now here she was complaining of lost love in her hot springs. But Okina didn’t particularly feel like stopping - certainly not while the shrine’s sake still loosened her tongue. Not while she had finally dredged up the source of her dissatisfaction.

“Kasen, too,” she continued. “That woman has no love for this world. Nor for worldly things. Not in her core.”

Reimu’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What does Kasen have to do with this? I thought we were talking about Yukari.”

Water splashed softly as Okina sat forward. A gleeful, wicked sort of triumph bubbled up within her, rising through the angst and malaise. “She never told you? She’s one of _us,_ my dear.”

Uncertainty laced through Reimu’s tone. “What are you saying?”

“Dear Ibaraki was quite foundational to our Gensokyo. She was a Sage well before me, in fact - I joined in during the Youkai Expansion Project, but she was there nearly from the beginning.”

Reimu’s eyes narrowed. “Why should I trust anything a youkai says?”

“How many times have I told you? I’m a god, not a youkai.” Okina sighed, though she could sense the shrine maiden’s growing doubt. “Believe me or don’t. Either way, I think you’ll find that hermit to be _full_ of surprises.”

Reimu set her jaw in concentration and looked off into the treeline, mulling in silence. She was as abrasive and reticent a conversational partner as Okina had ever met. The other two Sages clearly saw something in her. Presumably something beyond her ferocious strength.

“Well, you’ve got two of the Three Sages pining for you. What say you? Care to complete the set?”

Reimu’s eyes flicked back to Okina and her expression soured. “No. I think you’re a deeply unpleasant person and I wish you’d leave my hot springs.”

Okina laughed. “Sensible. You’d never hear the end of it from the other two.”

She stood from the pool slowly and let her wild hair down. It had been a long enough soak. Tomorrow would be easier. She fetched her hat from the rocks nearby and placed it back atop her head, then gathered the rest of her clothes.

“I shall darken your springs no longer,” said Okina. “Enjoy your dip. Until our paths cross again, Hakurei.”

With that, she summoned up a set of doors and bid them open to her domain. As she stepped through, she heard the shrine maiden’s voice following her.

“You still owe me donations!”

Honestly, what did they see in her? Okina let the doors slam shut behind her. Tomorrow, she told herself, would be easier.

* * *

**Meiji 17 - 1884 CE - 1 year before the establishment of the Great Hakurei Barrier**

“Which brings us to our final order of business this evening,” said Yukari Yakumo. She drew up one last sheaf of documents. They would join their fellows in the completed stack soon enough. Okina Matara, seated to her left at the round lacquered table, stifled a yawn. Kasen Ibaraki, seated to her right, topped off everyone’s tea. Of late, they had taken to conducting official Sage business within the hermit’s tearoom. Kasen’s esoteric selection of blends was not the only benefit of the venue. Her dojo, in its isolated bubble of reality, insulated them from the mounting metaphysical pressure of the Meiji era and the world beyond.

Paradoxically, it was easier to feel how wearying mere existence had become when removed from the cause. The only other sanctuary Yukari had found of late was the Netherworld, and the soft embrace of its resident princess. Of course, Yuyuko had her own duties. The two had seen each other lately far less than either liked. It would be another long winter apart from her.

Yukari sighed softly and tossed the topmost document to the center of the table. It was a sublime piece of calligraphy on the finest vellum any of the Sages had seen in several decades.

“The Lord Tenma has graciously extended an opportunity for the Three Sages of Gensokyo to ally with the might of the Tengu.”

Okina burst into laughter.

Kasen spun the letter to better read it. Her expression darkened. “Then their military uprising has failed. If even the Tengu were suppressed…”

“I tried to tell them it was inauspicious,” said Yukari, regretfully.

“And now they’ve come crawling to our sanctum to lick their wounds,” Okina gloated. “It’s a bit late for this gesture, isn’t it?”

“I would not dismiss their wounds,” said Yukari. She shuffled forward another document; several pages of quick, workmanlike script on a sturdy paper stock. “I’ve taken the liberty of procuring an unpublished eyewitness account of the battle. _‘Our ranks scattered by the thunder of shells’ - ‘flying into suffocating curtains of lead’ - ‘truly a bleak hour for Tengu-kind’ -_ it goes on like this.”

“What of the human casualties?” asked Kasen.

“Negligible,” said Yukari, grimly. “The official statement from their Ministry of War lists this as a training exercise.”

At that, Okina’s smirk faded. “Cunning bastards. They deny even the sympathy of defeat to their foes. They deny their very existence.”

Yukari tossed the eyewitness report atop the courtly vellum. “This is a new era of war. Not just industrial, but informational. Cultural.”

It would only grow worse, she knew. From her dim memories of the future, she knew that humankind would only gain more sophisticated means of excision and extermination. This latest demonstration could only support the inevitability of the measure Yukari had championed all along.

The Barrier.

The measure lay, unspoken, over the Sages’ silent consideration.

Kasen shuffled through the Tengu eyewitness report. “They’re… _broken._ We can ill afford to deny them amnesty. There’s no guarantee we won’t suffer the same fate.”

Okina rolled her eyes. “Our guarantee is that none of us are foolish enough to challenge the Meiji oligarchs in open warfare. What about a series of targeted assassinations?”

“What, and leave the structure of the humans’ power intact? And allow institutional inertia to reassert their tack towards our extermination?” asked Yukari. “The subject is the Tengu, regardless. I agree with Kasen. Even in defeat, they could deter other youkai factions from challenging us.”

From challenging the Barrier’s groundwork. Left unspoken, yet again.

“Speaking of structure,” countered Okina, “Do you think this defeat is enough to dissolve the hierarchies of the Tengu? If something is broken, it must be _bound_ to ensure it heals in the proper manner.”

“Do we have the right to impose that upon them?” asked Kasen. It was clear she was far more comfortable discussing anything but the Barrier.

Okina scoffed. “Yes. Obviously. It’s _our_ society that they now wish to join.”

Yukari cleared her throat as she brought forth the final document in her collection. A freshly-printed newspaper. “We have always prized the independence and self-determination of our inhabitants. A concession towards a painless transition will earn us goodwill with the Tengu - and favors down the line. Furthermore, it is clear that they are prepared to resist any conditions we might impose. I have here an editorial from the latest edition of the _Bunbunmaru Newspaper,_ a Tengu publication.”

Okina made a disgusted noise into her mug.

“What does it say?” asked Kasen.

“Nothing of defeat, and nothing else overt. But a critical reader - or one with a certain predisposition towards us - might catch an insinuation that the reason we Sages have been reticent to join our might to the Tengu is because we are secret benefactors of the Meiji oligarchy.”

Kasen leaned back and groaned. “This is the first time the Tengu have even _broached_ the subject of alliance. What’s their justification for this claim? The abolishment of the caste system? Yet in its place the oligarchs yoke their subjects to _wages.”_

When Okina next spoke, there was a simmering outrage under her tone. It was she, god of outcasts, god of disability, whose domain had been most disrupted by the Meiji’s tepid reforms and drive to industry. What succor she could grant her subjects eroded day by day - these liberal reforms were a far cry from being _liberatory._

“Do they think a single edict is enough to reverse the weight of culture? To dispel the burden of stigma? Where is there room for god in a banker’s ledgers? How could it ever be sacred to be maimed by your master’s machines?”

A powerful, complex fondness seized Yukari. That was precisely the point. These were precisely the stakes. This was precisely what her structures were built to resist. Her Sages saw it too - they did not need her premonitions of a coming age when all of materiality bore down upon them. Mankind ill needed youkai in this cruel new age of steel and coal. Already they built engines to inflict far more monstrous things upon themselves. But muddled within that fondness was a torturous uncertainty. Surely they could see how their options narrowed by the day. Surely they could see the Barrier’s necessity.

“Fret not, you two,” said Yukari. She gave a sly smile. “I expect a retraction by next week’s edition.”

“The alliance is of such importance, then?” asked Kasen.

“Perhaps. But I feel the first impetus will come as soon as the _Bunbunmaru_ ’s editor realizes precisely who made off with her unpublished eyewitness account of the crushing Tengu defeat.” Yukari batted her eyes at Okina. “You didn’t think I’d waltz into alliance negotiations without a bit of _leverage,_ did you, my dear?”

Okina released a deep breath. Her rage settled into a residual irritation, but she returned Yukari’s smile. “Very well. You’ve thought this through. I think perhaps I should sit these negotiations out. But - twist their arms a little, for my sake?”

“Naturally,” said Yukari.

“Are we thus agreed to provide amnesty to the Tengu during the deliberation period?” asked Kasen.

“Agreed,” said Yukari.

“Yes, I suppose,” Okina sighed. “Is that everything?”

“I…” began Yukari. “I would like to once again gauge our will towards the Barrier.”

“I stand ready,” answered Okina. The god then tilted her head lackadaisically and shrugged. “On standing days, at least.”

Kasen looked down with a faint grimace, unable to meet the expectant gazes of her fellow Sages. Yukari, for her part, tried to keep her gaze as gentle and patient as she could. As much as she could when Kasen’s hesitation drove into her like a stake.

“It’s too severe,” said Kasen, at last. She drew her arm of flesh across her body almost defensively and clasped her bandaged forearm. Her grip tightened perceptibly. “The margins are too thin. There’s too much complexity balanced upon too much delicacy. There must be another option we haven’t explored.”

“Like what?” said Okina. “Armed insurrection? That went so well for the Tengu.”

“Perhaps if we had aided them, it might have!”

“And what then?” Yukari’s inquiry came out far closer to a rebuke than she had intended. As Kasen met her gaze, she felt no recourse but to plunge on. “Would we rule over a nation as its youkai overlords? Over a nation steadily refuting our very existence, in a world that sees that nation only for its plunder? How are the margins then? How fares the balance of complexity and delicacy?”

“Is governance not already our burden?” countered Kasen. There was a fire in her now that Yukari hadn’t seen in some time. “With a nation, perhaps we could change the course of this era!”

“The opportunity is _lost,_ Kasen,” said Okina. “Every day we delay will bring another loss.”

“What we seek to establish within the Barrier is a system of self-governance,” said Yukari. “Not just self-governance, but self-correction. Stability. Safety.”

 _“Youkai_ self-governance,” said Kasen. “Some choice we give Gensokyo’s humans - to leave and sell themselves in a factory somewhere, or to stay and be... _livestock._ The Barrier would rob them of even this choice!”

“It’s safety for them, too,” Yukari murmured. “All existence inevitably boils down to a cruel calculus somewhere within it. This is the least cruel I have found that ensures our survival.”

Kasen shook her head ruefully. “There has to be another way.”

“Have you found it?” asked Okina.

The hermit shut her eyes with a pained expression. “I’m still searching.”

Yukari sighed, but softened her gaze. “You know I’ve had my ravens searching for your arm when they can, Kasen. You know I’d tell you if we found it.”

Kasen jolted subtly and wheeled back to meet Yukari’s conciliatory gaze. The hermit’s expression crumpled. First the hurt that Yukari’s gentle concern nevertheless accused her of such a worldly and selfish desire, then the brooding acceptance that it was entirely accurate - that her pretense had been cut through to the core. Kasen glanced away again.

“I… I know.” She sighed, and swirled the leaves at the bottom of her tea mug. “Please, can we… can we decide this later?”

Yukari gave a sad smile. “Of course.”

“Shall we adjourn, then?” asked Okina, diplomatically. She shared a worried glance with Yukari. Kasen merely nodded, eyes still downcast. Yukari stepped softly around the table and placed a hand upon her shoulder and squeezed. Kasen did not visibly react. The fire had died once more.

Yukari completed her circuit of the table and took up the handles of Okina’s wheelchair. “We’ll see you tomorrow?” Okina asked of Kasen as Yukari steered her back from the table and towards the foyer.

“Tomorrow’s no good for me,” Kasen dully replied.

“Well, maybe not tomorrow, but we’ll see you,” said Yukari.

They exited Kasen Ibaraki’s dojo into the crisp night air of a hermit’s perfect autumn. There was silence between them for a time. Another certainty shone within Yukari, coalesced around her memories of another life, so many thousands of years ago. She had stood in awe in the shadow of a mountain not yet risen. She had wandered in mystic groves in fear and wonder and longed for someone long lost. She had come to this land through many times, in many states, and these glimpses fueled her certainty. She knew they would raise the Barrier - she knew _someone_ would raise the Barrier. She had shaped this land. Who better than her?

“Well. Your place or mine?” asked Okina at last. Her tone was tired, worried, but still a bit sultry despite this.

“Hmm,” replied Yukari. In her honest assessment, she wanted to spend her night most with Yuyuko, but the princess of the Netherworld was busy of late. Industry levied a heavy cost upon the spirits of the land. She had next most wanted to spend time with Kasen, in the hopes she might be better convinced - and because it had been a while. But Kasen’s reaction dashed those hopes. Failing these, it was most tempting to simply slink home alone and get a head start on her seasonal downswing. It seemed Kasen’s reluctance hit her harder than she had thought.

But then, Okina had pledged her support. Perhaps such willingness should be rewarded.

“I wanted more time with Kasen tonight, to convince her,” Yukari added at last. It was not a commitment to either course, but it was honesty. “That’s not to be, it seems.”

Okina glanced back over her shoulder at Yukari. “Do we need her?”

Yukari stopped. With her stopped Okina’s wheels along the garden path. Yukari had a great deal of fondness for Kasen. She admired her strength, she valued her counsel, she respected her memory, she liked to pet her wide variety of animals - she loved her, certainly. A life without her would be lessened.

Did she _need_ her? What sort of question was that?

“We love her,” Okina continued. “Or, I love her - and I suspect, though I wouldn’t presume, that after several centuries of our little arrangement, you do as well. But, Yukari, we _need_ the Barrier.”

“What are you suggesting?” said Yukari, her voice soft, her emotions a treacherous, fractal coil within her.

“I’ve run the logistics. I believe it is within our power, between the two of us, to erect the Great Hakurei Barrier. It would be _easier_ with her, certainly. It would be _better_ with her. But without her, it remains possible.”

“I would not wish it to come to that,” said Yukari. But perhaps, said some deep part of her - some part that this degenerating age needled and harried with every breath - perhaps, if it did come to it, she could live with it. To live, this part of her continued, was the goal. She found no error in Okina’s logistics.

“Nor would I, at this juncture,” said Okina. Her tone softened. “But where will we stand in a year? In five? How many more setbacks and indignities must we endure? We may find consensus to be a luxury we can no longer afford.”

Yukari reached forward and stilled her trembling hands upon Okina’s shoulders. She squeezed, and feared for a moment it would turn to a clench. She bent down and rested her head against Okina’s, her cheek to the god’s cheek.

“Let’s not give up on her yet.”

She willed open a gap on the path before them. It slit the temperate autumn air into a eye-filled portal leading elsewhere. From those many eyes - her eyes - she saw her own state clearly. She did not wish to be alone with these emotions tonight. Yukari pulled back slowly until her mouth was level with Okina’s ear.

“Your place.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Heisei 30 - 2018 CE - 133 years after the establishment of the Great Hakurei Barrier**

“You’re just leaving me to clean up?” The Hakurei shrine maiden’s voice reeked of disbelief.

“Well…” Yukari cast her gaze over the closing of the Hakurei Fireworks Festival. Stray ofuda drifted in the summer night’s breeze. The laughter of fairies echoed behind the empty stands and from the surrounding trees as roving packs of them blasted each other with haphazard danmaku. The last of the human festivalgoers filed steadily back to the village in huddled groups quietly expressing bewilderment, concern, or a sort of dazed exhilaration. Yuyuko Saigyouji, princess of the Netherworld, touched down behind Yukari and threaded her arm around hers. Yukari smiled innocently back at Reimu. “Yes. It’s your festival.”

“You were the one who crashed it! You and the others - I swear, if I get my hands on Okina-”

Yuyuko spoke from behind her. Yukari could tell from her posture, her voice, and a millennium of familiarity that the ghostly princess must have been hiding a coy smile behind a fan. “The others? Oh yes, it was so good of Sagume to drop by. I wonder to whom such a high-ranking Lunarian might have owed a favor?”

It was a masterful implication. Of course it was Yukari who had invited Sagume. The Lunarian’s power had reversed the chaotic spiral into madness and bloodshed promised by the other party crashers. Frankly, Yukari was glad to have spent that favor. Obligation in any direction relative to the Lunar Capital was heavier than she cared for. Yet of course, judging by Reimu’s expression, Yuyuko’s rhetorical question and its deft bit of social maneuvering went right over her head.

“You’ve got your friends to help,” said Yukari, encouragingly. She scanned the pockets of festival entrants still lingering around the grounds. Some distance down the aisles, in the glow of a food stall’s lanterns, she spotted Okina. The god sat in conversation with the two who had originally plotted to crash the festival. The inchling and the amanojaku - the architects of that unpleasantness several years ago. The conversation seemed amicable. Perhaps they were swapping incident tips. Okina sensed Yukari’s gaze upon her and glanced back across the grounds, her expression never shifting.

“How late do the food stalls stay open?” asked Yuyuko. “Some grilled lamprey might be nice. Or yakitori...”

“Uh, Mystia’s should still be open,” said Reimu, unbalanced by the sudden change in subject. She turned to look back along the rows of stalls and saw instead the gathering of schemers. “I can- Hey.  _ Hey!” _

The shrine maiden stomped off, new targets acquired for her ire. Yuyuko pressed herself against Yukari, her face in her hair, her voice a giggling whisper. “Okay, go! Go!”

Yukari cracked her own grin, finding her excitement infectious. She leisurely opened a gap behind them but kept her eyes to the other Sage, curious as to how things would unfold. As Reimu approached, Okina cut herself off abruptly and pointed out something on the inchling’s back with apparent concern. The inchling - Shinmyoumaru, wasn’t it? - turned her head and spun, trying to see for herself. Her back now sported a door. Okina quickly opened it and - in a moment of metaphysical uncertainty, considering the size disparity between the two - disappeared inside. The door shut behind her and vanished. That was an old trick of Okina’s, but this, evidently, was a new audience. An audience now left alone in the path of an oncoming shrine maiden.

Satisfied, Yukari turned to Yuyuko. For the festivities, Yuyuko had selected a kimono adorned with stylized hydrangeas, whose pastel floral patterns made an elegant accent to the dazzling danmaku that had unfurled in the skies all evening long. Despite being an early entrant, the excitement hadn’t ruffled her appearance in the slightest. Yukari saw her at once framed against the backdrop of her own eye-filled gap and from the gap itself; a perfect totality. She was radiant this evening. Rather, she was radiant every moment of her existence, and tonight was no exception. Now, at last, Yukari had her for the rest of the night.

She practically carried Yuyuko through the gap. Her lips met Yuyuko’s as she sealed the opening behind them. They drifted together in a moment of brief liminality, wholly suspended within this void that bridged all things, this void that was itself Yukari. Yukari’s hair billowed out behind her as momentum carried them through the weightlessness. Yuyuko slid her hands down Yukari’s body. Yukari responded with her own wave of touch, beckoned up from all around them. She was eager - both were eager - but it wouldn’t do to rush. They had all night, after all. Yukari left it at a tease and opened another gap. The two landed elegantly in the drawing room of Hakugyokurou, Yuyuko’s manor in the Netherworld.

Yuyuko broke off their kiss with a dreamy shiver. “I love when you do that,” she murmured.

“What about this?” asked Yukari. Out of a sleeve she withdrew several skewers of freshly-grilled lamprey. Naturally, she had left payment behind for them.

“Parlor tricks, in my parlor?” Yuyuko plucked the offered skewers from her grasp and tucked in delightedly. With her free hand, she led Yukari through the manor. Not to the bedroom, but to the kitchen.

“You’re always such an appreciative audience.” Yukari squeezed her hand fondly. By the time they reached the kitchen, Yuyuko had finished the skewers. “Something else on the menu?”

“Just grabbing a few things,” Yuyuko replied. She started to rummage through the pantries. “Let’s use your kitchen. I’m sure by the time Youmu helps Reimu with tearing down the festival she’ll have had her fill of cleaning. I’d hate to leave her another mess.”

“In that case, I’m sure I have some of these ingredients at home,” said Yukari. She was glad Reimu had the help. Truthfully, Yukari felt a bit of guilt for leaving all the cleanup to her, but an evening with Yuyuko was too precious a thing to pass up. Still, she didn’t want to make herself  _ too _ troublesome.

“Ah, but do you have…” Yuyuko wheeled in triumph with a basket of fresh fruit. “Peaches! Freshly harvested from the Netherworld’s orchards.”

Yukari stepped closer and clasped her hands over Yuyuko’s. “I will shortly.”

She passed a gap over the both of them and they emerged in the kitchen of Yukari’s manor, nestled within the Barrier. It was a routine maneuver. Yukari had passed between the rooms of their respective abodes and back again so many times over the centuries that she half expected the conceptual border to give out one day and start spontaneously manifesting each others’ furniture in the other’s house. It was a tangible relief to be home again, made all the sweeter by her cherished company.

“Welcome home, Lady Yukari, Lady Yuyuko.” Ran Yakumo, her shikigami companion, greeted them warmly. She was utterly unfazed by their sudden arrival - indeed, she had anticipated it, judging by the carafe of sake chilling in a bowl of ice on the countertop. “How was the fireworks festival?”

“A bit of a bore, thankfully,” said Yuyuko, depositing the peach basket on a nearby table. “All the more charming for it.”

Yukari groaned softly and popped her back with a stretch. “I had to call in a favor to keep it that way. With the Moon. So it’s all thanks to me, and  _ no _ thanks to Okina, thank you very much.”

Ran maintained her gentle smile, but her amusement expressed itself through a subdued wagging of her fox tails. “Shall I prepare some peaches for you?”

“That would be simply delightful,” said Yukari. She swept up the carafe and several sake dishes with one hand and scratched behind her shikigami’s fox ears in passing with the other. Ran’s tails wagged slightly harder.

Yukari and Yuyuko retired to the living room. They poured sake for each other and clinked dishes together in a silent toast. Yukari leaned back on her couch - practically an antique now, but well-maintained - and Yuyuko nestled against her.

“How long has it been?” asked Yuyuko.

“A few weeks, at least,” answered Yukari. There were several things she might have been asking about, but a few weeks covered the most pertinent ones. It had been that long since Yuyuko had last visited. Perhaps she was simply basking in the opportunity, perhaps she was asking for a refresher. The ghost princess had a spotty memory, and while Yukari’s was only marginally better, she at least was able to offload some of the burden of memory onto her shikigami.

Then again, perhaps she was asking about Okina. Planning something with the Sage again - even something so minor as a festival - seemed to be dredging up all manner of things. It was easy to push them aside with Yuyuko’s company, but the princess was sharp enough not to miss that she was pushing them aside in the first place.

“Too long,” Yuyuko sighed, and nuzzled closer for a brief bit of warmth. She was as remarkably soft as ever. Then she pulled back slightly and met Yukari’s gaze with a look of expectant concern. “But then, how long has it been since…”

It seemed she was asking about Okina after all. Yukari leaned her head back and sighed. It was not a sigh of dreamy intimacy. “I thought it was a good sign. None of us had heard from her in so long, you know? She acted up last year, of course, but that was settled. So here she approaches me again and says ‘Yukari, old chum, let’s plot a bit of mischief at the Hakurei shrine maiden’s next festival!’ I thought it was encouraging! She’s trying to be a part of things again, she’s getting involved!”

“It’s hard to be so isolated for so long,” Yuyuko nodded matter-of-factly and topped off Yukari’s sake.

“But-” Yukari groaned in frustration, “My God, she hasn’t changed in the slightest! She’s still just as clingy, just as stifling as ever. Did you see that entry of hers? Secret Ceremony: ‘Danmaku Dupion’?”

“A cocoon for two,” mused Yuyuko, a sour note entering her tone. “Butterfly theming - that’s  _ our _ thing. That’s what  _ we _ do. Who does she think she is?”

“That’s precisely it,” Yukari said. “Do you remember those first few years after we raised the Barrier?”

Yuyuko gave a carefree smile. “I don’t remember what I had for breakfast yesterday.”

“Kasen had just had that tremendous falling-out with us,” clarified Yukari. “I wasn’t around as much. I hardly saw you, in fact.”

“Oh, then I  _ definitely _ don’t remember it,” said Yuyuko. She topped off her own sake and waited attentively. That was one perk of a bad memory - every story was a new story.

“She just tried to do every little thing together. She practically lived here. And me with my hibernations! I only have so much year to go around. She wanted  _ all _ of it. That was never our arrangement.”

Yuyuko sipped her sake in consideration. Her soft gaze gained a faraway gleam. “Those were hard years, I think.”

“For a couple years in there she had even edged you out of my spring awakening,” Yukari sighed. “And then she makes a  _ spell card _ about it?”

“You’re sure it’s about you?” teased Yuyuko.

“Who else could it be? Unless she went off and suffocated someone else with butterfly theming.” Even airing grievances had its own pleasure in Yuyuko’s company.

Ran entered silently with a tray brimming with peach slices and a fresh carafe. Yuyuko brightened immediately. “Oh, come in! We were just complaining about Okina!”

Yukari downed the last of the old carafe. “Ran,” she croaked dramatically. “Raaaan. I need your tails.”

Ran deposited the tray within reach on the coffee table and flushed slightly. She sat on Yukari’s unoccupied side and angled her tails between them. “Her servants always creeped me out a bit,” contributed Ran. “Her new pair is even worse, somehow.”

“When did she get a new pair?” asked Yuyuko, in between slices of peach.

“About a century ago, I think,” said Yukari. This constituted “new” for the three of them. Yukari leaned back into the mass of tails and swung her legs over Yuyuko’s lap with a sigh that was half luxuriating and half affected exasperation. “They’re doing their best, one supposes. Certainly we couldn’t have raised the Barrier without their contribution.”

The Barrier. Ensconced within it, some part of Yukari had an instinctive, subconscious awareness of its integrity, its health, its upkeep. Even outside of it or within its sheltered confines, the awareness lingered like a half-remembered dream. She had forgotten now what it felt like to not have this part of her. Someday, perhaps, it would all collapse and she would be forced to remember, but that day was well over the horizon. Until then, where better for a creature of boundaries such as she to dwell but within it?

“How much longer do you think her new pair has left?” asked Ran.

“I couldn’t say,” said Yukari. “She was looking for replacements last year, but it seemed to fall through.” She paused as a pang of guilt played through her. She closed her eyes. “She hasn’t been doing well, has she?”

Yuyuko squeezed her hand. “I’m sure she’ll muddle through.”

“I should have never let her drive Kasen away,” Yukari said. “She balanced us out.”

“Oh, Kasen!” Yuyuko said. “Is she still trying to get to Heaven?”

“Yes,” scoffed Yukari. She paused as Yuyuko fed her a slice of peach before continuing in a tone dripping with contempt.  _ “Heaven. _ Do you know what she said to me the other day?”

“What did she say?” asked Yuyuko, readying another slice. The other day, in this case, was roughly two years previous, but all stories were new stories.

“She comes to me for help because this...  _ teen _ keeps getting in from the Outside, right?”

“The one who helped judge at the festival?” asked Yuyuko.

“That one, yes. So I say, Oh, what a delight to have you on our side again! And she says: ‘I am  _ not _ on your side.’ And she says-”

Yukari took a deep breath, rising slightly from the cushion she’d made of Ran’s tails, and placed a closed fist over her chest.

_ “‘My ideals exist alongside the laws of Heaven!’” _

Yuyuko slipped another peach slice into Yukari’s mouth, left open by her impression, then burst into giggles. Yukari snorted and sank back against Ran, who was herself snickering.

“What laws?” asked Yuyuko. “‘Don’t come in’?”

“Right?” Yukari scoffed. “If she hates the Barrier so much, why this fixation on Heaven?  _ They _ don’t even let people  _ in.  _ All they do up there is eat peaches and get soft. You don’t need to go to Heaven for that, Kasen! There’s peaches and softness right here!”

Yuyuko prodded Yukari’s toned abdominals through her tabard and dress. “You could do with a bit more softness.”

Yukari caught her hand and raised it to her lips to place a kiss upon it. “That’s why I have you. And you too, of course, Ran.”

Ran shifted forward slightly to sample a peach slice for herself. “Kasen’s a kind person,” she said. “She still asked about you, that first winter.”

“And she just  _ remembers _ things!” said Yuyuko, admiringly. “How does she manage it?”

“It’s not easy, sometimes,” Ran sighed.

Yukari mulled on this as she fished a strand of fox fur from her sake dish. In truth, the distance still stung. She missed what had been between them. The society they had built together out of love had outlasted that love. The land they had claimed and safeguarded afforded them enough space to remove themselves from each others’ lives - at least for a century or so. There was bittersweet pride in that. She regretted the lost love, but simultaneously she would not apologize for the actions she had taken to protect what had risen from out of that love.

“She’s found her own way through the Barrier now,” Yukari said at last. “She doesn’t need me anymore. Not that she asked.”

The statement hung between them. With it was a vague misgiving within Yukari. There could only be one thing for Kasen to seek in the Outside. The question was, what would she do when she  _ found _ her arm?

Perhaps Gensokyo was due for another test of resilience.

“At least she’s learned quarantine procedures,” Ran sighed. She stood, gradually, to collect the empty tray, leaving Yukari to flop backwards onto familiar-warmed cushions. “Please enjoy your evening, Lady Yukari, Lady Yuyuko.”

“Thank you, Ran,” said Yukari from the cushions. “You’re an angel. A better class than you’d ever find in any Celestial’s bloodline.”

Yuyuko leaned down with a sultry expression. She was poised to say something, but the motion dislodged a small cloud of fox fur. She reversed course, spitting softly, and settled for grasping Yukari’s hands to lever her upright. “How do you manage this?” Yuyuko managed at last.

“I hibernate through one of her sheds.”

“Mm.”

“But enough talk of the past,” said Yukari. She ran a finger along the fine silk draped over Yuyuko’s collarbone. She felt her eagerness return. “What of tonight, old friend?”

* * *

**Meiji 18 - 1885 CE - 3 days after the establishment of the Great Hakurei Barrier**

Light snow drifted over Kasen Ibaraki’s garden, left fallow for the winter. Over the course of her weeklong meditation it had built to such a depth that an untrained traveler would have sunk to the knee. Of course, any such traveler’s presence would have been unlikely in the extreme. The path into her dojo and its grounds was known directly only to Kasen and her resident menagerie. It was hidden to outsiders even under the best of conditions, and currently, outside her dojo’s temperate bubble, there raged a snowstorm of historic proportions.

Flakes settled over Kasen’s thatched winter mantle and hat. She cleared snow from neglected pathways, more for the benefit of her animals than herself. Most were hibernating, but a few still roamed the year round. She freshened their feed and mucked out their homes. It gave her something to focus on that wasn’t the argument. It was always the same argument.

She pushed from the cold ground and fluttered to the roof with a basket of meat. Up here was the protected roost of her great eagle. She set the basket down before the majestic beast and reached up to scratch around its neck. The eagle croaked indignantly, then bent to feed.

“I know, I know,” said Kasen. “I left you enough though, didn’t I?”

The eagle shifted from leg to leg in its nest to indicate the difficulty of going out to hunt when one has an egg to care for.

“Fresh  _ is _ better, you’re right,” admitted Kasen. She couldn’t feel her eagle’s warmth through her arm of bandages and smoke, but she knew it was enough for a successful incubation. “I’ll keep watch for game while I’m out there.”

The eagle ruffled its feathers and paused its meal to cock an anxious eye towards her. Clearly, it was just as worried by the prospect of Kasen going out into the raging storm as it was by the prospect of leaving its egg unattended.

Kasen smiled in reassurance and gave her eagle a parting pat. “I’ve naught to fear from a bit of snow. Your only task right now is to keep that little one warm and safe.”

As midday’s diffusion scattered through the snowfall, Kasen readied herself for the journey. By air, it was a short flight from her dojo atop the highest hill of the valley to the mansion of her fellow Sage. The storm made such a flight infeasible. It was a journey of an hour or so by foot for her, even in inclement weather. She knew the surrounding woods and the elements were not a danger to a hermit of her caliber.

With the first step past the bounds of her hermit’s realm, the light dimmed behind heavier clouds, the wind snatched at her mantle and the snow grew denser. She immediately regretted her promise - no living thing would be out in this. She stood with perfect poise atop a snowdrift, subconsciously distributing her weight so as not to sink in. She did not fear the storm, but it still took her a moment to adjust to the conditions. In that moment came her first premonition of wrongness. It was not the trees. Their branches clattered in the wind or groaned beneath the weight of snow, but they stood where they always had. No, it was that the slope of the land itself had changed subtly. Perhaps it was simply the way the snow had piled.

She looked back, past her home. Her home, which had stood atop a modest summit. Around which now the land seemed to climb back and away. She could nearly convince herself that beyond the clouds was some looming thing defying her sense of scale and inner understanding of the surrounding land. But why would she  _ want _ to convince herself of such a thing? She suppressed a pang of resentment towards the storm. It robbed her both of the hunt and of the liberty to explore this enigma. It ensured that the hour or so it took to journey to the mansion of Yukari Yakumo would be spent mulling over the argument.

Some part of Kasen had hoped that her week of meditation away from the other Sages would grant her some new defense, some fresh perspective, some scrap of rhetoric that might make clear her feelings. How could she get them to understand? It was too premature! Surely there were other methods they could exhaust before this last, most dire option? Surely there was more time to find her arm - her most cherished doom, her worldly anchor, lost out there somewhere - before they sealed away in perpetuity this society they had spent the last few centuries shepherding together. Surely there was something new she could tell these women she loved - these women she still told herself she loved.

Something that wasn’t - “I’m sorry. You’re right.” She wasn’t ready to be sorry. She wasn’t ready for them to be right.

There was nothing. She was losing ground. Her thoughts were a closed loop drawing tighter around a knot of dread. The distant, crystalline laughter of a passing yuki-onna snapped her from her reverie. A youkai’s laughter - when had she last heard that? Some gut instinct snagged at her thoughts - a second premonition of wrongness. Nearly for the last two decades, there was a weight she steeled herself to bear every time she left her dojo. A weight, a metaphysical fatigue, a draining tack towards dissolution - of course she knew what it was even if she couldn’t articulate it like the other Sages. And yet - where was that weight now? What had happened?

In its absence, if she stilled herself to search for it, there was a sense of effortless liberation. It chilled her. She pushed her thoughts away from it, pushed her way forward again into the storm.

Kasen stumbled past one last familiar line of trees and into the third wrongness. This clearing should have held her destination. It should have greeted her with the snowy grounds of Yukari’s manor. Instead there was a featureless expanse of wind-whipped snowdrifts. She circled the clearing in confusion. Had she lost her way in the storm? Impossible. She knew the treeline around her, even bare in snow and gloom. Had some unknown enemy razed it? But there were no signs of debris, and who would have the strength to strike such a blow against Yukari? Against a fellow Sage?

Yukari had moved it entirely. That was the only conclusion. But  _ why? _ Denial weighed down the dread welling up within Kasen.

On her third circuit of the meadow she caught it. It wavered in her periphery as she rounded the southwest border of the clearing. She looked northeast, to the center of the snow-choked meadow and the former site of the manor. There hung a lingering distortion amidst the torrent of flakes. It knit itself closed at a glacial pace but still gleamed fresh as a wound. She strode towards it with a delicate purpose, half afraid it would disappear at some unknown impulse. It stayed, heedless of her presence.

Kasen readied her bandaged grasp. She had already lost this arm before. If this rift proved unstable, it would be no great loss. Magic and cloth could be replaced. She plunged her hand into the gap. There was an uncanny pressure and resistance to it, but it held steady. She unspooled the bandages of her forearm as a brace, then reached with her arm of flesh into the gap. She grasped the edge and forced it wider. Her muscles strained. She felt herself steaming in the biting cold. The gap lengthened along a vertical plane as she pulled it further open, until at last it was tall enough to step through. Inside was darkness, but beyond that, a faint slit of light. She cast her hand of bandages forward to catch that slit. The smoke held within the bandages - her own essence - glittered in a spiraling trail connecting back to her body. She stepped inside.

Freed from her efforts, the gap back to the clearing started to seal itself once more. She lurched forward to the next slit, reeling herself closer. She caught it, jammed her fingers into it, and started to lever it open. It was disorienting in the space between the slits. She felt unmoored, floating as if deep underwater. It was not simply darkness that surrounded her. This, Kasen realized, was the chthonic substrate over and out of which Yukari manifested her form and will. This was the space within her gaps. There was a sense of dispassionate observation. It should have been familiar, yet it was directionless, unfocused. All around were eyes, sealed shut and dormant.

“Yukari?” called Kasen. The brooding void absorbed every echo of her voice. There was no answer. This wasn’t right. What had  _ happened? _

She pulled the far slit open yet further. Brightness resolved into cobblestones, a garden path. The gap was wide enough to fit her torso if she tried, but she wanted it wider for the sake of her caution. The slumbering darkness around her would not brook it. A wave of hands pressed against Kasen’s body, limp as fresh corpses but innumerable, undeniable. They forced her through the gap. It felt less like active will and more like some cryptic purging reflex. She tumbled onto the cobblestones and the gap snapped shut behind her.

Kasen lifted herself from a puddle of slush knocked from her winter gear. Before her stood the Yakumo manor as she had never seen it. A sky of rich violet twilight shone the light of dawn onto the house and its grounds. Its temperate gardens seemed suspended in an uncertain greenery, emblematic of the border between seasons. Outside its grounds, where once there had been a familiar treeline, now there was an eyewatering panorama that shifted too quickly from the point of perception - leagues with a flick of the glance. Heavy winter clouds over a familiar valley. A mountain of mythical proportions, raised over it, making foothills of the previous valley peaks. All through the manor grounds she saw the techniques that formed her Senkai, the little bubble of space she called her home, but copied, distilled, translated into some new dire purpose. Kasen ceased her wheeling and shut her eyes from the dizzying sight. The purpose was clear.

They had raised the Barrier without her.

She blinked away tears and set her focus upon the manor’s entrance. Flanking the doorway in postures that betrayed no small amount of tedium were the servants of Okina Matara. Nishida, eyes closed, fanned herself with her branch of office. Teireida caught Kasen’s approach and poked her cohort to attention with her bamboo stave.

“Lady Ibaraki!” called Teireida. “Welcome!”

“Please, allow us to announce you,” said Nishida, bowing hastily.

Kasen whipped off her soaked mantle and thatch hat and stuffed them into Teireida’s fumbling grasp. “I will announce myself,” she growled. She paused inside the empty foyer to remove her boots and to try to control her breathing.

“Th-they’re in the bedroom,” said Teireida, leaning into the doorway. “Still. Probably.”

Kasen knew the way. She sighed. “Thank you.”

It was strange enough to be greeted by Okina’s servants. Normally it was Ran who welcomed her, but there was no sign of Yukari’s shikigami save for the evidence of her domestic influence. The mansion was clean, but still as a tomb. Her heart ached with every step. The bedroom?  _ Still? _ Was it such an accomplishment, raising this  _ thing _ without her? Did it merit such indulgence? How many days had it been?

She moved to keep from breaking. Bile and heartbreak simmered inside her. She paused outside the doorway to the bedroom to compose herself as best she could. Just because they had sidestepped her didn’t mean she wanted to broadcast how it had compromised her. There was silence from within.

Kasen entered the bedroom of Yukari Yakumo. Her every cynical projection faltered in the room’s atmosphere. Okina sat in her chair by the bedside, her back to the door, her hand over Yukari’s. Ran sat on the far side of the bed and glanced up at Kasen’s entrance, her kitsune’s elegance wavering over an undercurrent of deep weariness. Yukari lay in apparent slumber, ensconced in the bedding of her western-style four-poster bed. Deeper than slumber - this was outright hibernation.

Okina turned at her entrance. “Kasen,” she said. Her voice was quiet, her tone at once guarded and tired.

“What have you done?”

A faint smile flickered over the god’s face. “Only what was necessary.”

Kasen’s grip tightened on the doorframe. She pushed herself forward. “What have you done to  _ her?” _

Okina looked back to the hand she held. “I didn’t do this.”

Ran cleared her throat and stood. “Three days ago, Lady Yukari and Lady Matara erected the Great Hakurei Barrier, sealing us from the depredations of the lands beyond and ensuring the realm of Gensokyo would remain a home for youkai survival.”

Okina released her grasp of Yukari’s hand to wave graciously towards Ran. “With the assistance of our servants, of course.”

Three days. She had felt nothing in her isolation - not the slightest disturbance or premonition.

“She went under shortly afterwards,” continued Okina. “You know how she gets in the winter. This time, it’s simply… worse.”

“Wake her up,” said Kasen. She stepped closer to the bed, her fist clenching and unclenching, her heart thundering. “I want to hear it from her.”

“You think I haven’t tried?” asked Okina.

Ran’s tired eyes narrowed upon Kasen. “Lady Yukari left me with the missives that I was to carry out her will while she slumbered, and that she was not to be disturbed.”

“Did she leave a message for me?” asked Kasen.

Ran shook her head. “She left a message for Lady Yuyuko. You are not Lady Yuyuko.”

Okina gave a sharp and bitter laugh. “And here I feared I was the only one.”

_ “You _ could have told me,” Kasen spun to Okina, her voice simmering with reproach. “Why didn’t you?”

Okina met her reproach with a calculated, weary smile, utterly devoid of warmth or remorse. “Would you have stood with us, if you had known? Or would you have interfered?”

Kasen said nothing. She didn’t know her own heart in this. She hadn’t wanted to consider the question - she hadn’t thought it necessary. She thought she still had time. She hadn’t thought they would act without her.

“In such a monumental undertaking, we could not chance the slightest uncertainty. We have made as perfect and as enduring a solution as our means permitted.”

“Without me!” spat Kasen. “Are there only two Sages, then?”

“When have we ever required perfect consensus?” asked Okina. “We gave you every piece of information, every bit of logistics that led us to accept the necessity of this course. You didn’t trust our judgement.”

Kasen grabbed a fistful of Okina’s tabard and hauled her out of her chair. Her voice came out as a guttural growl. “What about my arm?”

Okina’s eyes flared in surprise. “You would raise your hand to a god?”

“It’s still out there!” Kasen cried. “What about my  _ arm?” _

_ “What about it?” _ Okina spat. “You think we all made clean breaks? You think we didn’t throw anything away? You think we sacrificed  _ nothing?” _

Kasen found herself choking on her own rage. Her grasp trembled. When was the last time she had felt such an overwhelming profundity of emotion? Was this what it took?

“You should have seen her, Kasen,” said Okina. Her eyes shone feverishly. “She was magnificent. The power! The absolute control! I did all I could for her. I gave her everything. I took on as much of the burden as I could dare. And this!” She gestured to the bed. Her voice climbed with every word. “This is where it leaves us! Where were  _ you, _ Kasen? Where have you  _ been?” _

“I was looking for another way!” growled Kasen. Her tone rose to match Okina’s. “I was looking for anything but this!”

Okina laughed. “What do you know of the way? Squirreled away in that mansion of yours, keeping yourself apart from the world. How can you know the world if you won’t be a part of it?”

Tears stung Kasen’s eyes. “What does that matter, now that you’ve sealed us all away from it? What do you think will come of twisting the world like this?”

A gap tore open next to the two of them. Cold air billowed through. Ran’s tails bristled in fury behind her.

“The Lady Yukari is not to be disturbed!”

She wove another gap, this one to bridge the room’s distance, and delivered a powerful shove through it. Kasen tumbled out of Yukari’s bedroom and into the evening sky over Gensokyo. The gap slammed shut behind her. Winter stormclouds blanketed the land far beneath her. She still clasped Okina by the tabard.

“The world moves on, Kasen!” Okina called over the wind that whipped past them. “We’re still a part of it! We’ve  _ ensured _ that!”

Okina reached forward, sleeves billowing, and clasped her hands over the bandaged forearm that held her. Her grasp was gentle. Her tone, pleading. Of course she would resort to this now that there was no one to witness.

“Everything I showed you,” answered Kasen. “Everything I shared with you - you used it for  _ this? _ You used  _ me!  _ You  _ used _ me!”

Kasen released her grip on the god’s tabard, then pushed. She unraveled her arm out of Okina’s grasp. The two peeled away on separate plummeting trajectories.

“To save what we built together!” shouted Okina. “If you want another world so badly, why don’t you fight for this one?”

“Go to Hell!” Kasen spat. She spun back and away, orienting herself to the cloud-cloaked foothills and the refuge of her dojo.

Okina’s voice howled after her. “Run then, coward! Like you’ve always run from us! I never ran from her! I’ve loved her every day!”

“And I didn’t? I loved her too! I loved  _ you.” _ Her voice came out raw from the distance, the force. Her cheeks stung with the wind that whipped her tears away. “Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

Okina’s gaze smoldered with an unreadable intensity. She gave a tired, subtle gesture. A set of ornate double doors materialized behind her, keeping pace with her fall. They yawned open to another space. She sank back through their threshold and into cryptic darkness. The doors closed, then winked out.

Kasen Ibaraki fell, and let herself fall. Furious anguish seized her heart.

She would not speak again to Okina Matara for more than a century.


	3. Chapter 3

**Heisei 30 - 2018 CE - 133 years after the establishment of the Great Hakurei Barrier**

Autumn wove its tapestry across the foothills of Youkai Mountain and up its slopes. It was not particularly unusual in its timing, and its spectacular colors and bracing scents carried no unwelcome surprises. It would fade in its appointed time and pass into winter. This mundanity was a blessing in the wake of the previous year’s seasonal disruption.

Kasen’s Senkai tempered and refined the season without leeching it of any of its vitality or splendor. The treeline visible from the window of her study blazed in red and gold. Lovely as it was, it held less weight in Kasen’s mind than the contents of the long box kept next to the window. She had nearly made a shrine of it. Fresh seals covered its length. It was a relief to have her arm again, and a greater relief to have its seals renewed in full fortitude. Only…

She had hoped it would be  _ more _ of a relief.

Yet again, Kasen found herself mulling over the battle in Hell, and the days leading to it. Her plan, in retrospect, was a tenuous and harrowing one. Sloppy. Too contingent on unknowns. It nearly failed. She had nearly  _ won _ down there. But she hadn’t had time to make a better plan. She hadn’t anticipated the extent to which the seals on her arm had deteriorated.

Only Reimu had the power, the knowledge, the skill, the determination to seal it away again. To once more seal away Ibaraki-douji - the unfettered wickedness Kasen had cast away over a millennium ago. Kasen had ensured Reimu’s capability over the last eight years of guidance and training. But then, they hadn’t just been eight years of guidance and training. They had been companionable years - years of camaraderie, friendship, and even, to her own surprise, love. Kasen hadn’t anticipated how, in the face of her terrible reunification and under the weight of her unrelenting malice, that bond had instilled in Reimu not resolute action but trepidation.

Her thoughts hitched upon a singular image. Reimu, on her knees in exhaustion and despair, and her eyes - those lovely brown eyes she had seen reflecting peace, joy, exasperation, laughter and concern over the last eight years - shimmering in betrayal.

“Knock knock.”

A fluttering of color at the window and a familiar voice. Komachi Onozuka, ferrywoman of the Sanzu River, bobbed gently in the air outside the window of Kasen’s second-story study. She sat side-saddle atop her scythe. The smile on her face looked almost wistful.

“Come in,” said Kasen. She hadn’t expected company tonight, but Komachi ranked least unexpected. The shinigami seemed to drop by whenever it was convenient for her - or perhaps whenever it was inconvenient for her superiors.

Komachi floated closer to the open window and swung from her scythe to the sill. She slipped inside gracefully and grinned. “Up to anything this fine evening?”

Kasen drew in a measured breath. “I am contemplating the fragility of mortal efforts and the impermanence of all things.”

“Ahh,” said Komachi, knowingly. “Looks kinda like you’re drinkin’ alone with a box.”

“That’s part of it, yes.” It threatened to become something of a ritual. A glass for herself, a glass for the arm, a one-sided toast, then - waste not, want not. She had taken to repeating it every few nights, as her ruminations necessitated. An offering to her own death, kept beside her but apart from her. She took up the arm’s glass and offered it to Komachi, the reaper in her study. “Slow day at the river?”

“Couple accidents, plus one from old age. Ferried ‘em over already.” Komachi accepted the glass graciously and raised it in salute. “Here’s to the Barrier for keepin’ my workload light.”

Kasen gave a wry smile and raised her own glass. “To the Barrier.” For no longer barring her from what she most desired.

“So, this is what the whole hullabaloo was for, huh?” Komachi picked up the box to appraise it, then yelped as the mummified arm within shuddered against its confines.

“Yes. All my malice is sealed away within that arm.” Everything she had done, all the heartache and effort, was for this. To rededicate herself to the life she had chosen. To liberate the world from the terror of the most bloodthirsty Deva of the Mountain - the beast she once was.

Kasen had forgotten - genuinely forgotten - what it  _ felt _ like to be Ibaraki-douji. The wonder and glee within her malice. Wickedness as both a lens through which to assess the world and a force to project upon the world to reshape it. Such a profound and vibrant connection to her own emotions, yet her every emotion bent towards evil.

It was harder in many ways to live as what she had become - to live without that malice. But it was better. For the world, for those around her, for herself.

Komachi alternated between shaking the box and letting the sealed arm rattle back in aggravated response. Her expression was one of morbid interest.

“Did you come just to gawk at it?” asked Kasen.

Komachi set the box back in its place by the window. “Nah, actually, I came by to apologize.”

“Apologize? What for?”

“Breakin’ into your house. I mean, it was Tenshi’s idea, but I went along with it.”

Kasen had been able to piece together as much from the state of her dojo after her return from Hell. She couldn’t grudge either of them. Without the portal Kasen had left behind, it would have been impossible to find the site of Reimu and Kasen’s titanic struggle within Hell’s infinite darkness. Reimu, as it turned out, needed the help.

“Tenshi does have a rather forceful personality,” said Kasen. “It’s hard not to get swept up.”

“Yeah, you ever tried to keep a Celestial out of something? Scratch that, you literally did with all those seals you put on your house. I just wanted to keep her from leveling it to get in, y’know?”

The seals had been more for the purpose of keeping her arm in and any bystanders away rather than keeping Celestials out. The fact that Tenshi needed a shinigami’s assistance to gain access filled her simultaneously with a quiet pride in her own abilities and with a dubious anxiety towards the competence of Heaven. Still, if Tenshi hadn’t arrived, then Reimu would never have roused from her own despair.

“Seems like an uncommon amount of effort for you,” noted Kasen.

“You kiddin’ me? You know how yelled at I’d get if I let Reimu die down there? My boss’d be like, ‘Komachi! How could you let another Hakurei shrine maiden die in Hell? After I’ve been waiting thirty-something years to judge her! I thought you were a more considerate person when I hired you!’”

Kasen laughed. “It so happened that Tenshi’s presence was critical. You did it to save a life. Why apologize?”

Komachi looked away bashfully. Her gaze roved over the bookshelves, the arm, the treeline out the window. “I mean… I like this place. It’s a nice spot to take a break. I don’t wanna jeopardize that. Sure, it all turned out for the best, but it was still a breach of trust, y’know?”

“I…” Kasen blinked. She was not accustomed to receiving apologies. What did one do with them? More pressing - what did one do with the emotions they brought? “You… You did the right thing. You don’t have to apologize.”

Komachi sighed in relief. “Ahh, I’m glad. A good slackin’ spot is hard to find. Now,” she drew up a stool, sat, and gestured with her now-empty glass to continue. “Gimme the blow-by-blow. What the Hell happened down there? How bad did Tenshi thrash ya?”

Kasen topped off her own glass, but paused before giving Komachi a refill. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be working right now?”

“It’s these edge cases that make the whole job worthwhile. The Hakurei shrine maiden gets dragged bodily into Hell by a hermit-turned-Deva and survives because a Celestial comes in for a tag team? They oughta be  _ payin’ _ me to be here.”

Kasen narrowed her eyes.  _ “Are _ they paying you to be here?”

Komachi rolled hers in response. “I ain’t a snitch.”

That provoked a grin from Kasen. She topped off the undutiful shinigami’s glass and sat back in her own chair. “Believe it or not, Tenshi never laid a finger on me. It was all Reimu.”

“Wait,” said Komachi. “You said she was critical. I know that sword of hers ain’t just for show.”

“I brought a meal for Reimu so she wouldn’t fight on an empty stomach. But hidden within the wrapper, unbeknownst to my arm, was the key to my defeat: a fragment of the legendary blade Onikiri, which severed my arm over a thousand years ago. Reimu… missed it. Tenshi didn’t.”

“She missed it?” Komachi shifted her posture in confusion.

“She must have been so shocked when I united with my arm that she didn’t think to check the whole bundle.”

“Back up, back up,” said Komachi. “You didn’t  _ tell _ her?”

“I-”

Her gut sank. No. She hadn’t. Where could she have begun? At the very beginning? How could she tell Reimu about the monster she’d been? She’d never found the time and then, suddenly, the arm robbed her of it.

How could she let it come to this?

“You didn’t think maybe, just maybe, she’d do a little better down there if she knew she was about to go up against one of the  _ Big Four of the Mountain?” _

Even as guilt roiled within her, she found herself snapping uselessly at Komachi’s incredulous needling. “She’s fought Devas before! She fights her friends all the time! I thought-”

“That’s a  _ game!”  _ Komachi flung her open hand to the window, as if to indicate the entirety of the society outside the Senkai. “You threw her into a situation where her only choices were to die or cut your arm off!”

“Don’t play down what she does! She puts her life on the line every time she goes out to resolve an incident!” And this time Kasen herself was the threat. Of course she had faith in Reimu’s power - but Reimu reciprocated that faith. Her reward was to be thrust into mortal struggle. No wonder things felt so strange, so strained, so fragile between them since their return from Hell.

Komachi groaned and clutched her face. “Don’t remind me. It’s like she’s anglin’ for an attendance record in my notebook of the nearly-dead. Wait-” Her eyes snapped open through her parted fingers. “Back up again. You put a  _ sword fragment _ in her  _ food? _ That’s dangerous! You know how many folks get done in by foreign objects in food?”

“I didn’t put it in the food,” Kasen explained. “I slipped the fragment of Onikiri into the wrapper. It was between two thick bamboo leaves.”

“Wait, don’t tell me you fixed her-”

“Onigiri,” said Kasen. “And pickled vegetables.” She withered under Komachi’s scrutiny.

“Onigiri. With Onikiri.” Komachi hunched forward, still clutching her face. Her voice climbed shrilly. “You hinged all this on a  _ pun?” _

Kasen sank into her chair. “She likes puns,” she hoarsely managed. “I thought she’d get it.”

“Does she like ‘em while a bloodthirsty oni’s attackin’ her?”

She could muster no response. How could she? What was she even accomplishing with her half-hearted justifications? Perhaps she was voicing them just to have them pulled apart, just to be attacked. What else did she deserve?  _ She hadn’t told her. _

After all that had been done to Kasen. After all the duplicity and heartbreak and the century of unrepentant silence from the other Sages. Under the weight of their decision, locked in the simmering confines of the Barrier. After all this - she hadn’t told her.

The shinigami’s tone grew feverish. “Holy fuck. This really was just about it for her, huh? No shrine maiden means pretty soon no Barrier. No Barrier means they change my routes around and dump more work on me. More work means mandatory overtime. They can’t do that to me. Ain’t I got rights as a workin’ woman?”

“She’s alive!” Kasen croaked. “Are you done?”

“I’m hyperventilatin’, here. I just had a near-death experience.” Komachi seemed to run out of steam at last. She took a deep breath and straightened her posture, then downed her drink in one gulp. She locked eyes with Kasen. Determination burned in her gaze. “Well clearly, I ain’t the one who had to apologize!”

“I know!” Kasen snapped. She regretted her tone, and continued, softer. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Not to me!” scoffed Komachi. “You still tryin’ to get to Heaven? You better get used to apologizin’ right now! You think they’re gonna  _ like _ you up there?”

“There’s so much to say,” said Kasen. In truth, she was beginning to have her doubts about her sworn course of action. It seemed an unavoidable side effect of repeated interactions with Tenshi. Were Celestials  _ all _ like that?

“So start sayin’ it!” said Komachi. “She’s probably worked some of it out on her own anyway. What are you doin’ still gabbin’ away here? Go apologize to Reimu, right now!”

“She’s probably asleep right now, Komachi,” Kasen sighed. “I promise I will.”

Komachi made as if to speak, but stopped herself. She pulled out a small notebook and flipped through the first several pages. She nodded in apparent satisfaction, stowed it, and stood. “Alright, looks like she’s safe. For now. That means you’re in luck.”

“Wh-” Kasen felt subtly perturbed. “You really think she’s about to die in her sleep?”

The shinigami blinked and made a small gesture to indicate the statement’s self-evidence. “You never know. But no, Kasen, here’s why you’re in luck.”

She grabbed Kasen by the hands and lifted her out of her chair. Her touch was cool, but not unpleasant. Once Kasen was on her feet, Komachi released her hand of bandages and smoke to pat her encouragingly on the shoulder.

“I’m a world-class apologizer. It’s like, half of what I do at my job. You and me, we’re gonna put our heads together, and we’re gonna  _ nail _ this thing.”

Kasen felt heat on her cheeks. It certainly wasn’t the drink - the amount she had was insignificant to one whose body was still functionally an oni’s body. Perhaps with her hermit’s lifestyle she’d grown unaccustomed to others offering to help her. Komachi’s gaze was earnest and sincere. She found it suddenly hard to meet it. “You probably wouldn’t have to apologize so much if you worked when you were supposed to,” she muttered.

“You don’t want my help? C’mon, consider it payment for breakin’ your door down.” There was a genuine current of concern in Komachi’s voice, and perhaps a hint of hurt at being rebuffed.

It was tempting to turn her away, to stew in her own guilt and failure for the rest of the night, alone. It was easy to sever connections - it had been ever since she had first contrived to sever her own arm so long ago. She had severed the strongest of her connections a hundred and thirty-three years ago and nursed the pain of it just as long. That pain had drawn her attention effortlessly away from the way it twisted and fermented within her until it spilled out to inflict itself on another. On Reimu. It stung to be confronted with this; it stung as strong medicine stung.

“No, I-” She pulled Komachi into a tight embrace. “I want your help. Thank you.”

“Oh!” Komachi froze. After a moment, she settled into the hug, then returned it. “Alright, nice.”

Kasen hadn’t truly held another since the Barrier rose. The weight of that isolation struck her all at once. Perhaps it was worldly of her, or selfish, but she didn’t want to let go just yet. It was slight comfort as she grappled with how thoroughly she had disrupted the bond between her and Reimu, but it was comfort all the same. “I want to make things right with her,” she said, softly.

“I get it,” said Komachi. The reaper patted her back. It had been so long since Kasen had felt the vibration of another’s voice through her body. “You’ve got the sincerity, you’ve got the recognition of wrongdoing, you just need one thing.”

“What’s that?”

Komachi pulled back, holding her by the shoulders. Her eyes gleamed with excitement. “Wow factor!”

“Wow factor?”

“You gotta wow her!”

Kasen laughed in confusion. “Do I really? Reimu… She’s a humble soul. She has simple needs. She’s not one to be swayed overlong by superficiality.”

“Look, wow factor ain’t about bein’ flashy - it’s about comin’ from the heart. Cook her somethin’, or take her somewhere. Or both!”

“Where could I take her that she hasn’t already been?”

“Well, maybe it ain’t about where  _ she _ hasn’t been, but where  _ you _ haven’t been.”

“What do you mean?” Kasen cocked her head quizzically. Admittedly, the Barrier had narrowed her horizons for quite some time. It was no longer a limiting factor, but the world of the Outside had changed in ways well beyond her. It was harrowing out there - overwhelming, overstimulating, difficult to even  _ exist _ for prolonged periods of time. She couldn’t imagine Reimu felt particularly differently.

“I probably shouldn’t tell you this. Kinda figured you already knew, but...” Komachi glanced around conspiratorially. “Okay - you know you can just  _ fly _ to Heaven, right?”

* * *

**Meiji 22 - 1889 CE - 3 years, 3 months after the establishment of the Great Hakurei Barrier**

Spring in this new Gensokyo was a matter of some ceremony. Spirits of the land roused from slumber with the awakening greenery, while spirits of the winter cold migrated to the peaks or began their own hibernations. Fairies fluttered over the treetops in raucous processions to herald the changing of the seasons. In the village, the humans prepared their tools and seeds and charms for a new planting season.

The season itself couldn’t reach Yakumo manor, cocooned within the Barrier, but from the grounds one could see it spread over the land from any angle one desired. No one walked the grounds. Spring brought another awakening of far more import to Okina Matara.

Here, in Yukari’s bed, Okina could watch every change play through the Sage as she surfaced from hibernation. It started with her breath. A gentle quickening from catatonic imperception to the steady rhythm of deep slumber. Then her body roused with dozens of miniscule motions all through her limbs, as though breath carried movement. Then came a flickering behind her eyelids, though her eyes remained closed. At last, Yukari rolled on her side - a titanic movement in comparison to her previous motions - leaving her serene face inches from Okina’s.

Okina reached forward and clasped her hands around Yukari’s. Yukari surfaced further - eyes still closed - as she gave a soft groan. Her voice came delicate and soft.

“-uyuko-” whispered Yukari.

“Good morning,” said Okina. A pang of jealousy lanced through her. Perhaps it was to be expected.

Yukari’s eyes fluttered open at last. Her heavy gaze resolved into comprehension, though sleep still clung to her insistently. “It’s morning?” she asked, blearily.

“Probably,” said Okina. It was difficult to tell from the bedroom - the light through the windows was a perpetually suspended superposition of dawn and twilight.

“Mmm,” said Yukari. She rolled onto her back once more, slipping her hands free of Okina’s grasp. “Five more minutes.”

“It’s spring, my dear,” said Okina. She pulled herself up until she sat next to Yukari on the bed, looking down at her. What had she envisioned? A cozy awakening, a warm greeting, perhaps a dalliance before the day began in earnest? Was it such a disappointment for these hopes to be dispelled? It was a joy to simply hear her voice again after a winter without her.

“It won’t stop being spring in five minutes.” Yukari had closed her eyes once more. A faint frown creased her face. “The flowers aren’t all blooming at once again, are they?”

“No,” said Okina.

“Good,” said Yukari. “That should only happen once every sixty years.”

“Shall I brief you on the winter’s events?”

Yukari cracked an eye open and sighed. She pulled a pillow from Okina’s side and propped it behind her to support her as she sat up in bed. “As you will.”

Okina reached forward and clasped Yukari’s hand once more. “We lost the Child of Miare in midwinter. A fever.”

Yukari stared past the foot of the bed. Sorrow softened her aimless gaze. “Aya. She held on longer than I expected.”

“She’ll be back soon enough,” said Okina. “I believe she counted herself lucky to see what came after the Barrier. It kept her life’s work relevant, after all.”

“Now the humans must guide themselves,” said Yukari. She leaned back against the headboard and breathed deeply. “What else?”

“The Tengu seem to have at last recovered from the shock of their defeat. There are rumors they may seek to expand their territorial claims this year.”

Yukari sighed. “Perhaps I should have twisted their arms a little more. Doubtless the other factions won’t let it pass unchallenged.” She gave an ironic smile. “Perhaps even Kasen might be roused if the Tengu start patrolling her doorstep.”

Another lance of jealousy, alloyed with regret. “It’s best not to speculate about her. She’s made her feelings clear. If she acts, she acts on her own behalf.”

“Haven’t we always, as Sages?” Yukari’s gaze flickered to meet Okina’s briefly. “What’s done is done. You know, I’m sure Ran can give me these briefings.”

“I know,” said Okina. She squeezed Yukari’s hand, still residually cool from her hibernation. The briefings helped her feel of use, and it was time together with her. Time together had grown more precious now that the Barrier robbed Yukari of a winter. She found herself with yet another pang of jealousy, rather pathetically, towards Yukari’s familiar. What did that say about where they were? “I like to hear your thoughts. It hastens us towards courses of action.”

“How many of those actions have been necessary?” asked Yukari.

“How do you mean?”

“Since the Barrier. How many situations have arisen that have required our direct action? Our combined might?” Her gaze flicked to her hand lying limply in Okina’s grasp, flicked to the window, flicked to the foot of the bed, restless.

“Perhaps not our might, but what of our wisdom?” Dread crystallized within her. What was this talk of necessity? Perhaps their Gensokyo didn’t need their efforts. But  _ Okina _ needed  _ Yukari. _

What did it mean that she wouldn’t meet her gaze?

“We have our avenues and we have our means,” said Yukari. She rotated her hand in Okina’s grasp until she could grasp back, and squeezed. “They have proven more than adequate to safeguard what we’ve built.”

“We’ve built something beautiful,” said Okina, squeezing back. “We’re still building it.”

“Beautiful, yes,” said Yukari. There was warmth in her tone, but something else. Something unreadable. “Resilient. Enduring. Self-sufficient.”

Yukari bowed her head and sighed.

“I wish we could have built it with her,” she said.

Okina felt her expression freezing. Kasen, again. Perhaps it was to be expected. “She wouldn’t-”

Yukari squeezed her hand. “I know. I know. But the mechanisms are in place, Okina. Our Gensokyo can govern itself, correct itself. Isn’t it time we see how it builds itself? We need not keep doing this.”

Okina said nothing - could say nothing. She pored over Yukari’s words searching for any path through their inevitability.

“Let me rephrase that.” Yukari reached her other hand to place it over Okina’s and raised it between them. She met Okina’s desperate gaze once more with a tired determination. “I don’t want to keep doing this. With you.”

Yukari may as well have laid her out on a slab and gutted her. She felt her heart thundering and a howling, frigid void in her gut. Tears threatened to melt her frozen facade.

“Have I not given enough?” asked Okina. Her voice, too, threatened to shatter. They were safe now, thanks to their own monumental efforts. The Barrier was a barricade against the unbearable pressure of the world. They were free. All she had done was for this freedom. Why could they not enjoy this freedom, together?

“Okina,” said Yukari, heartrendingly soft. “You’ve given too much. I need space.”

Too much. All the love and precious energy she had poured into what they shared - too much. Perhaps it was to be expected. The signs were there. She hadn’t wanted to read them.

“I see,” said Okina. She pulled her hand back slowly and Yukari released it. She rose from the bed and gathered her cane from the bedside. She summoned up an entrance to her own demesne and paused at the threshold. She half-turned, and looked back at Yukari. Yukari, still seated in bed. Yukari, returning a look of muted finality, golden hair pooled about her, left in hibernation’s disarray. Okina’s voice hitched. “If you need anything else-”

Yukari gave a strained smile, half in apology and half in incredulity. “Please,” she said. The rest remained unspoken - it was over.

Too much, again. It was to be expected. Okina stepped through her doorway, out of Yakumo manor and into her living quarters within the Land of the Back Door. She shut the door gently behind her and banished it.

A low moan built inside her, resounding and redoubling within her aching hollowness. She let her cane clatter to the floor and lifted her hands to her face. Three shuddering steps brought her to her own bedside. She doubled over. The moan ripped free from her aching frame, but it was no longer a moan. It was a sobbing shriek of purified anguish.

Too much. Four centuries, she had given her. Four centuries, she had loved and admired and stood by that woman. Four centuries, they had stood together as the Sages. Maybe they had pushed Kasen from their orbit, but she wouldn’t stand with them. Okina had prayed the orbit would restabilize, just between the two of them. She had tried so hard to be that stability. But it could never be just the two of them - not with Yukari - and she was  _ too much. _

Okina sank to her knees. She clutched at her face. Violent sobs spilled from her. She hunched in on herself, shuddering, pressing her head to the futon. Four great, heaving sobs, and she slid to the floor. The moan returned to her, curled in on herself.

Was this how Kasen had felt?

“L-lady Matara?” The voice of Teireida, from the doorway.

“Leave me,” croaked Okina.

“Do you need-” The voice of Nishida. There were witnesses now to her monumental grief - her servants, her precious arms and legs.

_ “Leave me!” _ she howled from the floor.

There was no further sound from the doorway. She was beyond sense, beyond thought, beyond shame. She wept, bitterly, alone.

She would remain alone. She would not take another lover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this fic before the epilogue chapter of WaHH was published and folks, lemme tell you: kasen only gets a hug in one of them


	4. Chapter 4

**Heisei 30 - 2018 CE - 133 years after the establishment of the Great Hakurei Barrier**

Kasen and Reimu collapsed beneath the crimson-hued shade of a maple, breathing heavily. The sounds of birdsong gradually resumed, absent, thankfully, from the sounds of pursuit. They had spent most of the morning fending off or evading Tengu patrols as they climbed Youkai Mountain.

“Let’s grant the Tengu amnesty,” Kasen muttered to herself. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“What?” said Reimu, between deep breaths.

“Nothing,” said Kasen. “Old business.”

“I thought you said this wasn’t going to be for training,” said Reimu.

“Why?” asked Kasen. “Do you think you’re learning something?”

“I’m learning to re-evaluate what to expect when you invite me to go on a hike.”

Kasen turned and smiled. “Are you having fun?”

Reimu gave a short laugh. “... Yeah. Feels good to fight alongside you again.”

“Those other times were to address dangers to Gensokyo’s balance,” said Kasen. “This time is something personal, I’m afraid. Still, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

Reimu laughed again, slightly longer. “You really are a Sage.”

“Where’d you hear that?” asked Kasen. Another thing she’d meant to tell her. She’d worked out quite a bit for herself, evidently.

“Something Okina told me last year. I hadn’t really thought about it much. She was a bit drunk at the time.”

“It’s true,” Kasen sighed. It was a painful association - not one she liked to speak about. But then, many such associations littered her past. One had already reared up to complicate things between them. She deserved to know. “I was. I suppose I never formally resigned.”

“Huh,” said Reimu, and resumed catching her breath. And that was that. What had Kasen feared? That Reimu would trust her less? How had she let herself get so closed off and twisted? They listened to the birdsong for a time. Reimu stood at last with a soft groan, brushed loam and fallen leaves from her skirts, and stretched.

“How much farther are we climbing, anyway?” asked the shrine maiden. “We’ve been working past Tengu territory for a while now.”

“All the way to Heaven,” said Kasen, with a faint grin. “Perhaps it’s selfish of me, but I was told ‘try before you buy.’ I wanted your company.”

“Heaven?” asked Reimu. Her face sank. “That’s gonna take us  _ ages.  _ We didn’t even bring camping gear. Even if we fly, we’ll barely make it by sundown.”

Kasen winked encouragingly. “Just a bit further. Once we’re past the treeline, I’ve got a little something prepared. We can make it by lunch.”

Reimu sighed in relief. “Good, I don’t think they let you camp there.”

“You’ve really been,” said Kasen, nearly as a question but far more in genuine astonishment.

“Yeah?” said Reimu. “You really haven’t? Marisa’s been to Heaven. Yukari’s been to Heaven.  _ Suika’s _ been to Heaven. I really just assumed you’d been.”

“ _ None _ of my old acquaintances saw fit to tell me, it seems. I heard it from Komachi, of all people.” Kasen felt a hint of bitterness creeping into her tone, but it remained mainly bemused. Though behind it all within her was a lingering dumbfoundedness that Heaven had been within her grasp, in some sense, this entire time. She had been aiming for it the  _ hard _ way, evidently.

“Oh, yeah, she’s been, too. Things got a bit rowdy up there about ten years back.” Such a casual admission from her. This shrine maiden really was an uncommon sort.

They resumed their climb. By late morning, they had left even the evergreens behind and entered a stretch of mountainside characterized by high meadows of yellowed grasses and wide fields of scree. Kasen led them up to a promontory over the slopes, and they walked to the edge.

Below them stretched all of Gensokyo, ablaze in autumn. Above and behind them, the mountain, and beyond it their destination. They rested briefly in silence. The sunlight and the activity warmed their bodies against the chill. Reimu loosened her scarf.

“We’re sure we’re past Tengu territory, right? We kinda stick out here.”

“Don’t worry,” said Kasen. She loosed a piercing whistle. It echoed down the mountainside. From the foothills far below rose an undulating line of liquid lightning that resolved itself into her dragon, Koutei. It swam through the intervening distance at an incredible speed.

“Why didn’t we just take your dragon all the way up?” asked Reimu, mildly incredulous.

“Then we wouldn’t get this view,” said Kasen.

“Wow,” said Reimu. “It really was a hike.”

Koutei landed on the promontory next to them and stretched out to offer them room to climb on. Kasen sat just behind Koutei’s head, securing handholds in the dragon’s mane. Reimu climbed on behind her and wrapped her arms around Kasen’s waist. Koutei lifted off and surged upwards, far faster than either of the two could have managed by their own power.

The contact brought heat to her cheeks despite the chill of the season’s high mountain air. She had never been held by Reimu before, for any reason - hadn’t held her either, for that matter. She’d kissed her, of course, once or twice, but that sort of thing was almost inevitable once you attended enough of her flower viewings. It was remarkable how free she was with her affections - though she often showed it in her own prickly manner.

There were many in Reimu’s life who, in their various capacities, busied themselves with ensuring that she could live her life, that she wouldn’t starve. Kasen was proud to be among them. She would even cede gratitude to Yukari for being another. Reimu needed all the support she could get. But these considerations reminded Kasen that touch, too, was something you could starve yourself of.

The wind rushed past. Youkai Mountain fell away beneath them as they soared higher. Reimu pressed herself closer to Kasen - she hadn’t the benefits of a hermit’s conditioning against the elements, nor the body of an oni. She was merely, beautifully, human. Perhaps it was only a defense against the cold. Perhaps it was an encouraging indication of where they stood. It would have felt more encouraging to Kasen without the weight of an unvoiced apology within her.

They cleared the summit and the clouds. The world stretched out beneath them. Still higher, resolving itself through the haze of distance, there shone a line of cliffs that spanned the horizon. Islands of floating greenery hung before them, archipelagos in a sea of air.

“Is that it?” asked Kasen.

Reimu shifted behind her to look for herself. “Yeah, that’s it.”

Kasen patted her dragon’s neck. Her heart pounded in anticipation. “Koutei, set us down on one of those islands.”

It still took several minutes of flight. As they climbed higher, they gained a vantage of the land above the cliffs. It was a vast plateau of lush greenery and vivid blossoms, empty and peaceful. Koutei angled towards a mansion-sized island that hung just above the plane of the plateau. They set down and disembarked from dragonback. The air had been frigid above the clouds, but on the outskirts of Heaven it began to warm again.

“H-here?” asked Reimu, still shivering from the flight.

“I told you we’d make it by lunch,” said Kasen. She withdrew a blanket from her satchel and laid it out on the grass. “We can nip over after we eat.”

“What did you pack?” Reimu sat on the blanket, pulling a corner of it into her lap to tuck her hands beneath. “Something warm, I hope.”

Kasen chuckled as she readied her trump card. From out of her satchel, she withdrew a thermos of tea. “Here’s a little souvenir I picked up while I was in the Outside world. It’s called a ‘thermos’ - it maintains the temperature of anything you put inside it. Amazing, isn’t it?” She poured a cup for Reimu and passed it to the shrine maiden, who accepted it gratefully, but casually.

“Oh, yeah,” said Reimu. “Sanae’s got one of these. You didn’t know about thermoses?”

“N-no,” said Kasen, flushing slightly. “This used to be the kind of thing you needed enchantments for.”

Reimu blew on her tea to cool it, then tried it. “Mmm. Really good tea, though.”

“Thank you,” said Kasen, pouring herself a cup. She set aside the thermos flask and withdrew a lidded cauldron from her satchel. Arcane geometry ringed its base. “Anyway, this one’s a real artifact. I made some hot pot with it.”

“Yes!”

They lunched on an island in the sky overlooking the fields of Heaven. Koutei coiled up for a nap. At length, their meal wound down.

“Truthfully,” said Kasen, packing away the last of their picnic, “I had another reason to invite you.”

“Yeah?” said Reimu. “Don’t tell me your  _ other _ arm is evil, too.”

Kasen laughed. “No, but it’s about that. I wanted to apologize for burdening you with that particular extermination.”

Reimu blinked. “It’s my job,” she said.

“It is. And I’ve been training you. To make you better, to make sure you were ready to-” Kasen sighed. “I could have told you.”

“Yeah.” The shrine maiden’s eyes narrowed. “You  _ could _ have told me. Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t know.” Kasen slumped. “I tried to seal it again myself, first. I didn’t want to trouble you with it. I’m accustomed to working on my own, but… I get stuck in my own head as a consequence. By the time I realized it was out of my capabilities to contain, it was too late. It was all I could do to set up what I did while battling the arm’s influence.”

“So why didn’t you tell me before it came to that point?” Kasen had braced herself for more accusation in Reimu’s tone. It was there, certainly, but concern edged it out.

Kasen stood. She walked forward a few steps and stopped, facing the plateau that filled the horizon. She looked down from the fields to her bandaged arm, held before her. “There are many things I was that I no longer am. That I no longer wish to be. It’s hard for me to speak of them. But more than that, I thought if you knew… You wouldn’t trust me. You would doubt my intentions.” She sighed, and held her hand to her breast. “I know how selfish that sounds.”

“It kinda blew up on you,” said Reimu. Behind her, the shrine maiden stood.

“It blew up on you, too,” said Kasen. “My own selfish fears led me to act with duplicity. My actions strayed from the path of Heaven. I used you. It was unworthy of me.”

“I thought I killed you.” Reimu’s voice shook subtly.

“I’m sorry,” said Kasen. Her body tensed in remorse. The breeze fluttered through her hair and her covered horns.

She felt Reimu’s hand upon her shoulder. She turned. Reimu averted her eyes in thought.

“It hurt,” Reimu admitted. “I didn’t have anything to go on down there. I thought you had just betrayed me before I knew what you set up for me. Even then, I didn’t really get it.”

Kasen clasped her hand over Reimu’s. She said nothing. She hadn’t told her. The full shape of her failure traced itself out in her mind again and again. This touch felt like more than she deserved.

“But-” At this, Reimu met Kasen’s gaze with a smile. “Once I knew you were still in there, it all worked out. Plus, then you let me put it on display. I can’t remember the last time I got so many donations at a festival.”

Tears welled up within Kasen. Could she really be so carefree, so cavalier in the face of this failure? Where did she find her strength to simply  _ move on? _ “I... I used you, Reimu. I used your strength.”

Reimu grabbed her other shoulder, then pulled her into a hug. “Never mind that.” Her voice was muffled from the embrace. “Are you going to start visiting me again? You used to come by almost as much as Marisa does but I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“I didn’t know how you felt about me,” said Kasen. She hesitated to return Reimu’s embrace.

“Stupid,” said Reimu, and squeezed her harder. “You could probably lecture a Yama’s ear off. Your arm almost killed me down there. If that’s all I have to look past then it’s nothing. You have good sake and interesting stories. And it gets lonely without you. Come visit me.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kasen, her voice heavy with a forgiven joy. She wrapped her arms around Reimu, blinking away tears. “I will.”

They held each other for some time on the border of Heaven. Reimu first broke the silence.

“The main thing that pisses me off is that  _ Tenshi _ had to bail me out,” she grumbled. “C’mon, let’s go over there and litter or something.”

“Reimu-!” Kasen began in reproach. The shrine maiden playfully shoved her away and laughed. Reimu danced back a few steps, then launched herself from the island. Kasen took off after her, chasing her all the way to Heaven.

* * *

Okina’s residence within the Land of the Back Door was as chaotic and many-faced as the god herself. It had no exterior appearance - if one didn’t already know the way in, it may as well not have existed. Within, it was a domestic space that seemed sutured together from any number of different houses and structures in countless styles. Some chambers weren’t even guaranteed a coherent gravity. The only unifying tenets of design were an absence of stairs and a surfeit of reclining surfaces.

In other words, it was a home suited to her needs. Today, a day in which there was a fire in her joints, her needs largely involved her bed. On the personal scale of judging pain Okina had developed over her many centuries of existence, today was by no means an extreme. It was somewhere within the subtle gradient of the median. Unremarkable in every way and made all the more tedious for it. She was accustomed to the tedium.

Satono Nishida brought her breakfast in the morning. That was a highlight, because then she had breakfast.

“Any news, Satono?” Okina asked over a mug of strong tea.

“Not a lot, Lady Matara,” her servant answered. “Something’s got the Tengu riled up.”

“Good riled or bad riled?”

“It mainly sounds like intruder reports and reinforcement requests.”

“Good riled,” said Okina. “Continue your monitoring and let me know if it develops further. Or if anything juicy happens.”

Nishida cleared away breakfast, then left to continue her observations. Okina considered going to the observation room herself but elected instead to nap for a spell. Just before midday, Mai Teireida swung by.

“Uh, boss?” she asked. She clearly wasn’t here to deliver lunch.

“What is it, Mai?” Okina replied, “I’m languishing.”

“Uh, well, Miss Yakumo is here to see you. Should I tell her… What should I tell her?”

Okina considered this for a moment, then sighed. “Send her in.”

Teireida bowed and scuttled away. Okina propped herself upright in bed. She considered briefly if she could make herself a touch more presentable, but dismissed it. Yukari had seen her in bedclothes before. Granted, not for over a century.

Gloved knuckles rapped delicately at her bedroom’s doorframe. There stood Yukari Yakumo in the full frilled finery and trigrammatical tabard of a Sage. Her face held an expression of formal neutrality. She had a parasol balanced over her shoulder - unopened, thankfully.

“Come in,” said Okina.

Yukari entered her bedroom for the first time in a hundred and thirty-one years.

“What is it, Yukari?” she asked. “I’m languishing.”

“Is it a standing day?” asked Yukari.

It  _ could _ be, regrettably. Was she genuinely invested in knowing? She wouldn’t come all the way simply to engage in pleasantries.

Okina opened her palms in an ambivalent gesture. “I would rather it not be. Why?”

“Reimu’s been kidnapped,” said Yukari. She lost not an iota of composure. It was remarkable.

“Well? She’s your fling, isn’t she?” replied Okina. “How does this concern me?”

Her pain fueled her recalcitrance, but a part of her was still curious. What could Yukari need her for? How long had it been since Yukari  _ needed _ her?

“Because,” answered Yukari, “Kasen took her.”

Well. Okina was one of the few beings who remained in Gensokyo fully aware of Kasen Ibaraki’s true capabilities, she supposed. But then, she hadn’t seen her since… The shouting. The push. The fall.

That was largely by design. She assumed a mutual effort maintained that design.

_ This _ was what Yukari needed her for.

“What, forcefully? What makes you think this is a kidnapping?”

Yukari lowered the point of her parasol to the floor and rested her hands on the handle. “Granted, there were no signs of a struggle. My impression is informed, Okina, by the fact that  _ Kasen is intentionally avoiding my observation network. _ The last time she dragged Reimu off somewhere out from under the eyes of my ravens she nearly killed her,  _ in Hell.” _

“Which resulted in her arm being sealed once more,” said Okina. “She’s always been such a goody two-shoes without it. Do you really suspect something so untoward from her again? Or do you have so little faith in your shrine maiden’s abilities?” Such behavior was concerning, certainly, but odds were better that she’d be getting out of bed to go blunder back across an exceptionally burned bridge. Hadn’t Yukari burned that bridge with her? She couldn’t decide which was a less pleasant prospect: doing battle with a revived Deva of the Mountain, or speaking to Kasen again.

Regardless, it meant that part of what Yukari truly wanted from her was access to her own information network. When was the last time Yukari asked her for something? There was a cloying yet bitter satisfaction to that feeling, like honey in over-brewed coffee.

“Certainly, there are any number of possibilities to account for such behavior.” said Yukari. She smiled sweetly and cocked her head a fraction to one side. “None of which  _ she _ wants me to see. Would you like to hear the odds of Reimu’s survival should Ibaraki-douji emerge once more? Ran calculated them.”

Okina sighed heavily. Apparently, she never bothered to show Reimu how to defeat  _ Kasen. _ That privilege was reserved for Okina. Still, Yukari truly was besotted with the poor thing, wasn’t she? “I suppose I’d better get dressed. I’ll meet you in the observation room.”

Today, the act of donning her Sage’s tabard felt a touch more ceremonious than usual. It was designed not to impede her, yet today she was conscious of its weight. It was not merely a physical weight. It was the weight of memory. Heaviest among those memories - Kasen’s cold cloth fist, implacable, clutching it tight.

She wheeled herself to the observation room. Doors covered the walls of the massive, domed chamber, and the sounds of latches and hinges suffused it with a subtle, mechanical undercurrent. The floor itself held several desks and various bureaucratic fixtures, as well as a series of specially-crafted chairs, each oriented to intercept and amplify all sounds from strategic clusters of doors along the wall. At the center was a swiveling throne that could orient itself to any such group of doors - doors which could open to nearly any point in Gensokyo and key points within its neighboring realms. This was the heart of her information network. This was how she maintained balance.

Nishida was sitting in her throne. They had talked about this. At least she had it oriented towards Tengu territory. In fact, her servant seemed so fixated upon the task she’d been given that she hadn’t noticed Yukari’s entrance, let alone Okina’s. Her fellow Sage sat elegantly upon a desk.

“Satono!” Okina called, loud enough to be heard over the throne’s acoustic tunneling. “How many intruders did the Tengu report?”

Nishida yelped in surprise and scrambled out of the throne. “Uh, t-two, Lady Matara!” Her servant noticed the room’s other occupant and her eyes widened further. She straightened with a desperate officiousness. “L-lady Yakumo! Welcome!”

Yukari waved in acknowledgment, then turned a coy smile on Okina. “Snooping as usual, I see.”

“We have our avenues and we have our means,” said Okina, letting just a touch of self-satisfaction drip into her voice. She had a hunch which she allowed to guide her inquiry, though so long as Yukari  _ needed _ her, she wouldn’t mind spooling it out leisurely. Two things were noteworthy enough to pierce the tedium today. Perhaps it wasn’t mere coincidence. “Satono, did the reports identify them?”

“Yes, Lady Matara! They were identified as a shrine maiden and a mountain hermit.”

“It pays to keep tabs on one’s direct metaphysical competitors.” Okina gave a meaningful look to Yukari. “Seems awfully collaborative for a kidnapping.”

“I gather Kasen didn’t inform Reimu the  _ last _ time she was about to transform into a legendary oni and attack her, either,” said Yukari.

Okina shrugged. “What’s the saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, get a new shrine maiden. If she can’t even manage to properly seal away the severed, malice-soaked arm of Ibaraki-douji-”

A flicker of irritation marred Yukari’s composure. “Are they still in Tengu territory?” she asked Nishida.

“Um! The reports dried up about an hour ago. Apparently they were picked up by a dragon.”

“They could be anywhere by now,” said Okina. The more she learned about the situation the more it seemed like their interference was unnecessary. Whose benefit was this excursion truly for? But then, she had never particularly minded making a nuisance of herself. Perhaps, ultimately, this was another courtesy. What else was she going to do with her day?

“Mmm,” mused Yukari. She hopped off the desk and stepped closer to Okina. “No, I believe there’s only one place they could be.”

“Oh?” Okina stood herself and retrieved her cane from the holster of her chair.

Yukari smiled, full of a cryptic warmth. “Heaven’s lovely this time of year.”

* * *

Meditating in Heaven, Kasen began to realize, was more difficult than she’d assumed. It was paradoxical, considering the idyllic environs. She sat atop a mossy boulder, surrounded by ever-blooming fields, with no sound but the gentle breeze through the greenery. It was warm and peaceful - a land far removed from the death-saturated impurity of the living realm. Every breath was a reminder of how much that impurity clung to her, how much it suffused her past. 

“Your dragon didn’t want to come, huh?” asked Reimu. Part of it, of course, was that Kasen’s present company had little interest in the exercise. The supine shrine maiden was visible only as glimpses of red and white fabric through the swaying blossoms.

“Even dragons have people they don’t want to run into,” answered Kasen.

“Oh yeah, the rest of them live up here, right?”

“So I’ve heard. They must have good camouflage. Are there other Heavens?” The fields stretched away, void of any but the two of them. If this was Heaven, where were all the  _ people? _

“Tenshi calls this spot Bhava-Agra,” said Reimu. 

“Bhava-Agra,” Kasen repeated. “That’s Buddhist, isn’t it? The highest of the formless realms. The ‘Sphere of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception.’”

This did very little to quell Kasen’s mounting unease. If anything, it added a greater sense of trespass - or unworthiness. She certainly hadn’t transcended her own form. Maybe all the people were simply formless already.

You could just  _ fly _ here?

“Sure are a lot of things to perceive if it’s not supposed to be about that,” said Reimu.

“If that’s your concern, are there not also infinitely many things to  _ not _ perceive?” posed Kasen.

“Maybe it’s supposed to be a challenge,” offered Reimu. There came the soft rustling of plants and fabric as she scratched her chin, then let her arm fall again. “It probably hits different if you don’t have a form.”

“No luck for us,” laughed Kasen. “We’d better ramp up our training.”

“Wait,  _ Tenshi _ has a form,” Reimu muttered. “So what the fuck?”

A brief silence fell. Neither of them were particularly equipped to address this manifestation of a rival cosmology. A deeper matter stuck in Kasen’s craw than the nature of enlightenment.

“We’re still inside the Barrier, aren’t we,” she said. It was not a question. She knew what it felt like to be Outside.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Reimu. She sat up and turned to regard Kasen. “Why do you ask? You’re a Sage, right? Didn’t you help make the Barrier?”

“Oh, no,” Kasen said, flatly. She started to laugh. It welled out of her, buoyed up from a core of bitterness, fermented for over a century. “No, no, no. I didn’t. No, that was it. That was the whole thing. That was-” She placed her palms together, then sliced them along the plane they made in opposite directions. “-the fracture point.”

“Really,” said Reimu. She propped her chin on her hand and leaned forward in interest. “This sounds like a story.”

“I suppose,” said Kasen. She took a deep breath to center herself. She marshalled her memories and old emotions into something like a narrative.

She told Reimu. About what was, and what was done to her, and what was done without her, and what was lost. She had never told it before - she had never found cause to until this moment. Voicing it eased its pain, or perhaps simply reminded her that it was an old wound now. Her arm no longer held it open.

“Wow,” said Reimu, at last. “So then after the Barrier went up Yukari just stopped looking for your arm?”

“It was never her responsibility,” Kasen sighed. “It was always something nice she did for me on the side.” She had no obligation to defend her fellow Sage, but between Yukari and Okina, she found it slightly harder to blame Yukari. Slightly. Yukari had shouldered a heavier toll.

“But then she didn’t even offer to let you through the Barrier to let you look for yourself?” asked Reimu. “I know she can do that.”

“It was clear where we stood,” said Kasen. “She established as much that first spring. After that, well… We’ve been talking again, lately, but that’s  _ new.” _

“She never even apologized?”

Kasen shook her head.

“That’s so shitty of her!” exclaimed Reimu. “She could have at least done that much. Ugh, it would have been so much easier to reseal your arm even like, five years ago. We could have avoided that whole mess.”

“I only found my own way through about three years ago. It took me that long to find it out there.”

“Urrgh,” Reimu groaned. “This is gonna make things weird, now.”

“How do you mean?” asked Kasen.

“I mean, she’s a friend. Sometimes we’re even more than friends. That’s been nice,” said Reimu. She held her hands before her in a gesture that evoked balancing or assaying, perhaps to help diagram out her feelings. “But you’ve been there for me too and I like you. And now I find out she did this huge shitty thing to you and just left it like that?”

Kasen’s brow wrinkled in concern. These assessments were high praise from Reimu. “You don’t have to stop on my behalf. I’d never try to limit who you share yourself with. It was… a long time ago.”

“It’s not that,” said Reimu. She seemed to be working into a genuine fume. “It’s - I don’t know. It really pisses me off.”

“I get it,” said Kasen. She softened her tone. “There’s no one like her. We took different paths. Sometimes I think that if I had just kept Okina from-” She cut herself off from that fruitless line of reminiscence. It would have changed nothing. “Well, the Barrier was always her pet project. But really, you don’t have to do anything drastic on my behalf.”

“Mmm,” grunted Reimu. She held her eyes shut in irritation and drummed her fingers against her knee. “If she had just-”

“Don’t blame her for my arm,” said Kasen. “That was me.”

Reimu began to speak, but froze. Kasen felt it too. The surge of power heralding a sudden emergence. Familiar, despite the foreign surroundings.

Twenty paces away, an incision opened along the fabric of paradise. The point of a parasol slid through it and thrust into the untainted soil. The incision widened to a gap and tied itself off with a pair of ribbons. Yukari Yakumo emerged in full regalia. Her expression was one of stern determination.

“Yukari,” said Kasen. “What are you doing here?”

She had some idea already. Apparently a bit of privacy was too much to ask.

“I could ask the same,” answered Yukari. “Really, Kasen, you must learn a bit of subtlety eventually. This is twice now you’ve absconded with the Barrier’s shrine maiden. The last time you took her to an afterlife you nearly killed her. Are you so hellbent on making yourself a threat to the Barrier’s integrity?”

Reimu stood and positioned herself subtly between Kasen and Yukari. “She invited me for a hike, Yukari.”

There was movement from the gap behind Yukari. Someone else was emerging. It took every technique of emotional control in Kasen’s arsenal to maintain her composure. Of course.  _ That  _ was how Yukari found them.

“Oh, look, she’s fine,” said Okina Matara. She stopped next to Yukari and leaned heavily upon her cane. The gap closed behind her. Her gaze flicked away from Kasen to fix back on Yukari with a tired irritability. “As I tried to tell you, before you hauled me along on this fool’s errand.”

Yukari returned her irritated look. “Is this how you respond to invitations these days?”

Okina merely shrugged.

“It’s been a very informative hike,” said Reimu. Her hand drifted lazily to the pouch on her hip and flipped it open. She kept a portable calligraphy kit in it, Kasen knew - several vials of ink, a few brushes, and papers for replacement ofuda for exterminations in the field. But it was a different sort of paper she withdrew now - an old style of contract paper, it seemed. “She told me all sorts of things you never decided to tell me.”

“Reimu,” said Kasen, quietly. “You don’t have to-”

Reimu spun back to face her with an expression of fierce excitement. “Look, it’s perfect! They’re both here! We can cream ‘em!”

“Reimu, this is  _ Heaven.” _ Kasen grimaced. “I will not commit violence here.”

“Alright, fine, we don’t have to do doubles.” Reimu sounded briefly disappointed, but there was a growing momentum within her now. “I’ll just take ‘em both on.”

Yukari raised her voice over the distance and their hushed conversation. “What sort of nonsense has she been filling your head with?”

Reimu spun again and jabbed her brush towards the two sages. “Yukari Yakumo! Okina Matara! Because of your duplicity, my friend’s life was cast into disarray while her arm ravaged the world outside! For those wrongs, however long ago it was-”

“A hundred and thirty-three years,” corrected Kasen.

“I zoned out through some of the details, sorry,” said Reimu. She cleared her throat. “For those wrongs of one hundred and thirty-three years ago, I, Reimu Hakurei, incident resolution specialist, hereby challenge you to duel by spell card!”

“This is asinine,” said Okina. She walked over to sit on a nearby boulder. “I recuse myself.”

Yukari glanced past Reimu to meet Kasen’s gaze. In that brief look, Kasen sensed a certain wistfulness bordering on regret. At the same time, there was a probing depth as if to determine whether Kasen had put Reimu up to her current course of action. In answer, Kasen could merely give a faint, helpless smile and shrug. The silent exchange lasted but a moment - but then, Kasen had known Yukari for centuries before they fell away from each other. It was a language she had never truly forgotten. The wistfulness, the regret, was far more than she expected.

Yukari returned her gaze to Reimu. “Oh?” she said. She took slow, deliberate steps forward with a poise of perfect intimidation. Her entire demeanor shifted. She cracked a cruel grin, as though dropping a mask. “You’re challenging me? What are your terms?”

“Six cards,” said Reimu, signing her own name to the dueling contract. It was a level of formality Kasen was unaccustomed to seeing from Reimu. But then, hadn’t these two written the rules in the first place? “Upon my victory, you are to apologize to Kasen for going behind her back and raising the Barrier without her.”

Yukari’s laughter rang across the fields of Heaven. “Oh, yes. I went behind her back. I lied to her. I locked her inside this magnificent Barrier of ours. I dissemble none of it. I see your six cards and raise you to ten.” She seared her name into the contract, snapped open her parasol and floated upwards. Fluttering wisps of violent energy in the shape of butterflies rose from the surrounding blossoms and wreathed her. “You want my apology? You’ll have to  _ drag it out of me.” _

Reimu launched herself into the air after her. “Spirit Sign: Fantasy Seal!” she cried. With that, the duel commenced.

Only Kasen’s age-old familiarity let her recognize that this, in fact,  _ was _ the mask. Yukari never passed up a chance to let others frame her as the villain, regardless of how substantive that framing was. Yukari’s admissions were, in her own inimitable and roundabout way, already an apology. Something like an apology, at least - Kasen was still rooting for Reimu. But above that, Yukari had given Kasen an opportunity. It was tenuous and fraught and promised to be unpleasant, but it was an opportunity nonetheless. For what, precisely, Kasen still couldn’t tell.

“Look, if you don’t need me,” Okina called up to Yukari within the brewing bullet maelstrom, “I’ll just be going.”

“‘Run then, coward,’” said Kasen, drawing herself up several paces from Okina’s boulder. “Who was it who said that, again? I seem to have forgotten.”

Okina stiffened, then turned languidly to Kasen with a strained smile. “Hello, Kasen. You, forgetting something? Fancy that. It must not have been important.”

Kasen wouldn’t allow herself to rise to the retort. It was difficult. Her emotions were as labyrinthine as the duel unfolding above them. “Why are you here?”

Okina nodded upwards. “I think she’s trying to get me out of the house. She could have picked a better day for me. I only came because she made it sound like we’d finally have to put you down. Otherwise I’d rather be in bed.”

“Put me down? Am I a beast, now?” It wouldn’t be the first time these two acted in concert against her. Now she was certain she wanted Reimu to win the duel.

“Clearly not,” said Okina. “You’ll have to forgive me - it’s a  _ bad day _ for me. At least _ she’s _ having fun.”

“I don’t see that I have to forgive you at all,” Kasen replied. She had helped Okina through her share of bad days. This was worse. Had the years only compounded the god’s bitterness? Perhaps she had shouldered a heavier cost than Kasen estimated.

“It was worth a shot,” Okina shrugged. “Not just a bad day, really. An emblematic one. You’ll be heartened to know that overall it’s been a frankly miserable century and a third for me.”

Despite everything, it was difficult to see her in pain. Kasen crossed her arms. “I can only say that you’ve brought it on yourself.”

“Oh, yes, certainly,” Okina laughed. “I clenched it all too tightly to my breast and it slithered through my fingers for the effort. We had a few years together after you left, but it wouldn’t hold. It’s been a solo performance for me since.”

“After I left?” Kasen scoffed. “After you pushed me out.” It hadn’t just been the Barrier. It was easier to see in the years after, and easier still to see in the retelling, the ways they had already been drifting apart.

“Yes, yes.” Okina gave a dismissive wave. She leveled a sulking, insulted sort of look at Kasen. “You’re no fun anymore, Kasen. Aren’t you going to gloat a bit more? Schadenfreude rounds out the humors.”

Kasen shook her head and stepped forward a few paces to avoid a stream of stray projectiles. “I don’t see the point in it.”

“The point. I’ve asked myself the same, on occasion,” Okina smiled. “I’ve had some years, believe me. But then I say to myself: Well! I’m alive. She’s alive. You’re alive. There’s a home for wonder and mystery and divinity in this burdensome world of ours. It could have gone worse. That’s why we’re here, perhaps. But then-” She opened her palm to Kasen. “Why are  _ you _ here?”

“In Heaven, you mean?” Perhaps for her own pride, her own doubt, her own self-satisfaction. “I wanted to see for myself.”

“It’s true,” said Okina. “You can just  _ fly _ here.”

“How is it possible?” asked Kasen. “We never left the Barrier. How did you…  _ annex _ Heaven?”

Okina laughed. “Not intentionally! The poor bastards did it to themselves. The instant they closed down nirvana as a method of entry, they scuttled themselves firmly into the realm of fantasy. But then, surely you knew about that particular closure.”

Kasen’s grip tightened upon herself. “... They said they were full.”

“Look around you, Kasen!” Okina Matara, the Matarajin, swept her cane across the empty fields of Heaven. “Does this look  _ full? _ This is my wheelhouse, and I can tell you - this is deplorable. It’s nakedly isolationist. You could walk the length of the world through Bhava-Agra before you found another soul. This is what you strive for? This is what you pushed us all away for?”

Kasen said nothing. Above her, the duel resounded in coruscating arcs of energy and charms. They thundered off through the open skies and slashed haphazardly into the fields around them.

“I think you’ve been sold a bill of goods,” said Okina, eventually. “How were  _ you _ planning on getting in?”

“Don’t you regret any of it?” Kasen cried out. “What you did - how you treated me? How you left me?”

Okina’s expression remained stoic, but her gaze gained a shimmering distance. She held her silence for a moment. “I have my share of regrets. But the Barrier? Never for an instant. We had a responsibility to our people. We were dying, Kasen. We staved it off. We live still. You do, too.”

Kasen marshalled herself with several deep breaths. When she spoke again, her tone was softly pained. “You thought I would have attacked you? Had our trust so degraded?”

“I suppose it had.” Okina shrugged. “What’s done is done.”

“Yes,” said Kasen, bitterly. She had expected little better from Okina. Perhaps even to be so disappointed was fortunate. At least it hadn’t come to blows.

Yukari slammed into the ground and skidded a furrow of crushed blossoms and upturned soil between them. Her unattended parasol drifted to rest in the fields some distance away. “Ahhh,” she moaned, placing a hand to her brow. “How could it be that I have been so defeated?”

“Oh, come on!” Okina scoffed. “You threw it!”

“I did no such thing,” said Yukari.

“Hah!” Reimu landed next to the furrow and stepped forward to where Yukari still lay. She stretched a hand down. “You know the terms.”

“Yes, yes.” Yukari grasped the offered hand and hauled herself up. She dusted off her tabard and plucked a few sanctified needles from the meat of her shoulder to hand back to the shrine maiden. She turned to Kasen at last with a heartfelt look and a sad smile. “Well, sorry, Kasen.”

Kasen blinked. She still wasn’t used to receiving apologies. She didn’t know where to begin with this one. It was, at the very least, a reinforcement of the sentiment she’d gleaned from Yukari’s earlier admission. Any such sentiment, in isolation, could never hope to bridge the gap between them. But perhaps it was a sign that Yukari would like to start, anyway.

Okina scoffed on her rock and looked away. Reimu brandished her gohei menacingly at the god. “You, too!”

“Come now,” said Okina. “Those weren’t the terms.”

“Reimu, it’s fine,” said Kasen. One Sage at a time was perfectly sufficient. Perhaps she’d get an apology from Okina next century.

Yukari laughed. “We should have told her, Okina. If she decided to attack us, so what? Perhaps it would have spiced things up a bit.”

Okina stood with a groan. “I’ve had my fill of paradise. I’d like to go home and sleep.” As Yukari opened another gap, Okina cast her gaze back to Kasen. “Heaven is among the people, Kasen. Don’t forget that.”

She shuffled into the gap, awaiting Yukari, but the Sage didn’t follow immediately. Yukari turned and strode the few paces that separated her from Kasen. She reached up with a gloved hand and threaded her fingertips through Kasen’s hair, just below her horns. After a moment, Yukari withdrew her hand, but her touch lingered down Kasen’s jawline. All the while, her face held a cryptic smile.

“Be seeing you,” Yukari said.

With that, she turned and joined Okina in the gap. The god fixed Yukari with a stare of utter disbelief. Yukari gave a parting wave. The gap closed.

Kasen and Reimu stood alone once more in the ravaged fields of Bhava-Agra. Kasen’s heart pounded. None of that old language she shared with Yukari could tell her what Yukari had possibly meant with that gesture. She had much to consider about the past, the path of Heaven, and her own path, but all these considerations floundered helplessly against the thrashing tides of her emotions. She might have stood there for several dumbfounded minutes if Reimu hadn’t spoken.

“That went great!” said Reimu. She stretched, still catching her breath from the duel. “But we should probably go before they send someone to check this out.”

Kasen rubbed her own jaw, surfacing from her daze, then nodded. She clasped Reimu’s hand. It felt to Kasen like most of the shrine maiden’s actions were for her own satisfaction, but she fought well. Seeing her satisfied was its own reward.

“Thanks.” Kasen said. “Let’s find my dragon.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Reiwa 1 - 2019 CE - 134 years after the establishment of the Great Hakurei Barrier**

Another year brought another spring, and with it, a new season for flower viewing at the Hakurei shrine. Somewhere along the last several decades, it had become the premier social event amongst a certain subset of Gensokyo’s youkai populace. Newcomers or the woefully out-of-the-loop might have found it paradoxical that a shrine dedicated, in part, to youkai extermination would be such a popular venue for youkai. But for the in crowd, as it were, it had long since passed out of the realm of paradox and into the realm of convenience. Yukari was committed to appreciating this convenience for so long as the current Hakurei shrine maiden maintained it.

This late in the spring, the blossoms wouldn’t last for much longer. The final cherry blossom viewing of the season was an opportunity to see and be seen, but Yukari wasn’t seen just yet. For the moment, she still prepared within her manor. At least, to the casual observer, it may have looked like preparing. If she was being honest with herself, it had evolved beyond preparing and into delaying. Possibly past delaying and into fretting.

“You look ravishing,” said Yuyuko, from the chaise lounge next to the vanity. “Shall we?”

“Soon, soon,” said Yukari. Yuyuko was by no means a casual observer when it came to Yukari. “You as well, my dear.”

Ran offered forward a parasol from the selection of contenders she held under her arm. “I believe this one accentuates your current outfit the most, Lady Yukari.”

“Thank you, Ran. You see, Yuyuko, in order to be fashionably late, one must first be fashionable.”

“I’ve got more than enough lateness to go around,” said the ghostly princess. “But I don’t think you’ll need the help this time.”

“It’s certainly already in full swing,” noted Ran.

Yukari slit open a miniscule gap overlooking the festivities and peered through it. Around a large banquet cloth laid out on the ground, Reimu sat with her friends. And there, amongst those friends, was the person over which Yukari fretted. “Kasen’s there,” she said.

“Oh, good!” said Yuyuko brightly. “I’m sure she’s brought something obscure to try.”

“Doubtless,” conceded Yukari.

Yuyuko stood and grasped Yukari’s hand tenderly. “So, old friend, why the hesitation?”

The touch was welcome, but Yukari grimaced at the question. “Last time I saw her I played with her hair.”

Yuyuko laughed. Ran looked slightly worried, but more bewildered. “Why did you do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” huffed Yukari. “She’s just so easy to tease. I’ve apologized and everything; it’s silly that she keeps maintaining this antagonism.”

“Doesn’t it give her the wrong idea?” asked Ran.

“Does it? I miss when she was on our side.” Yukari opened her spying gap and peered through again. Kasen had not, in fact, left the party since she last checked several seconds ago. There she remained, chatting animatedly with the shinigami assigned to Gensokyo’s departed. “I think she’s brought a date.”

“Good for her!” said Ran.

Yuyuko looped her arm around Yukari’s encouragingly. “You’ve brought two.”

“So I have,” Yukari smiled. She’d had enough of delaying.

Yukari wove open a wide gap, and the three of them stepped through to the festive grounds of the Hakurei shrine. Cherry blossoms fluttered in the lantern-light over small gatherings of youkai and particularly strong humans. It was a curious and lively sort of harmony emblematic of this current era of Gensokyo. Had she envisioned moments like this over the many centuries spent in subtle direction and laying groundwork? It was so hard to remember anymore. Perhaps she had.

Yukari steered her entourage towards where Reimu sat in her gathering. The shrine maiden’s company contributed quite a bit to the overall boisterousness of the flower viewing party. The current entertainment seemed to be watching the witch Marisa wrestle with the komainu Aunn. Reimu glanced over at Yukari’s arrival, then turned more fully to face her. Her cheeks were already flushed with drink.

Yukari expected the usual sort of rebuff from her, and was slightly taken aback when Reimu instead smiled warmly and said “Hey, you made it!”

“Naturally,” said Yukari. Perhaps their late arrival had the benefit of reaching Reimu in this precise equilibrium of open affection. It was refreshing, but a bit unbalancing. Reimu was a fun woman to be unbalanced around.

“You haven’t been letting them drink from Kasen’s medicine box again, have you?” Yuyuko asked Reimu, in regards to the spirited wrestling match nearby.

“What? No,” said Reimu. “Kasen brought a tuna.”

“Oh, wonderful!” Yuyuko sat immediately and took up a plate to help herself.

Yukari remained standing for a moment longer. She was conscious of Kasen’s attention. She met the gaze of her fellow Sage. It held not animosity, but uncertainty. In it was an inquisitive current that suggested that certain matters between them shouldn’t remain unspoken. Yukari answered with a smile that she hoped Kasen would take as an acknowledgment. With that, she took her place at the gathering.

It was not until later in the evening that the two found an opportunity to speak. Both her dates had found other conversations to immerse themselves in - Ran had remained with the central group, while Yuyuko had pulled Komachi off somewhere to gossip about their mutual superiors in the bureaucracy of Hell. This left the two of them alone. Kasen sat on the steps up to the donation box. Yukari faced her at the foot of them.

“A shinigami?” asked Yukari. “Rather bold choice for a hermit such as yourself, don’t you think? Practically flaunting your longevity.”

“She’s not in the hermit-hunting department,” replied Kasen. “Even if she was, at her pace? It’d probably be another century before I had to worry about it.”

“Still, it’s good to see you haven’t lost your fire,” said Yukari. It was quietly heartening to see Kasen putting herself out into the world and forming new connections. It wouldn’t do if someone like her stagnated. Yukari stepped closer, up to the bottom step. Kasen looked away, off over the grounds and their pockets of festivity.

“What did you mean by it?” the hermit asked at last.

“Oh?” Yukari replied with a feigned ignorance, as though she hadn’t been waiting for this question all night. “Mean by what, pray tell?”

Kasen sighed in exasperation, but didn’t elaborate. Really, she was too easy to tease.

Yukari smiled. “You don’t think it was just a bit of teasing, do you?”

“When is anything just as it is with you?” Kasen replied.

Yukari wove open a gap behind herself and sat on it as if it were a hammock. She drifted upwards until she hung just over Kasen’s eye level. Moonlight mantled her as the shrine’s lanterns lit her from below. “I told you, back when you expressed your ideals to me. I’ll wait as long as it takes for you to come around to our side.”

“You’ll be waiting a long time,” said Kasen. She still avoided Yukari’s gaze, perhaps out of stubbornness. “We can’t go back to how we were.”

“Oh, no, of course not. You can never go back. You can only ever take stock of where you are and move from there. But-” Yukari softened her tone. “-Might we never move towards being friends again? I know I hurt you. I wasn’t alone in that, but for my part I’m sorry.”

The barest glimmer of a slouch played through Kasen’s attentive posture. It was testament to the intensity of her inner deliberations. She returned Yukari’s gaze with a brooding undecidedness. “What did Okina think you meant by it?”

“I couldn’t say,” answered Yukari. “I didn’t ask.”

Both Yukari and Okina had known, before they arrived in Heaven, that their efforts that day might have been needless. Okina came along regardless.  _ Yukari’s _ presence hadn’t been needless. It gave Reimu an outlet for her frustrations and it gave Yukari a chance to apologize. A part of Yukari had hoped Okina would take that same opportunity, but it had been an idle hope. Okina made her own decisions. Another part of Yukari, perhaps selfishly, had brought her along just to see what she’d do.

“Then how did she take it?” asked Kasen.

“Poorly,” said Yukari. She remembered the ill-masked resentment in Okina’s brusque farewell. “Perhaps she’ll forgive me in a year or so. Perhaps not. But then, you certainly aren’t obligated to care. I understand our Okina is as unrepentant as ever.”

Kasen considered that statement for a moment, then nodded towards something behind Yukari. “Take a look at Aunn, there.”

Yukari turned smoothly to look back at the others. Aunn and Reimu conferred together, seemingly brainstorming stall placement for the next festival using various dishes as representatives. “Okina made her, did she not?” asked Yukari.

“She did,” Kasen nodded. “In the middle of the Four Seasons incident. One day, simply a divine spirit in an old statue, the next day, a youkai.”

“One wonders if Okina’s trying to influence the Barrier shrine, too,” mused Yukari. Did Okina not trust its stewardship to the other Sages?

Kasen shook her head. “I was suspicious of Aunn for a while too, for that exact reason. But she doesn’t report back, and she’s been such a tremendous help on top of that. So why did Okina make her?”

“A show of power, perhaps,” offered Yukari. Okina always had a flair for the dramatic. It came with the territory of being the god of noh performance.

“Maybe,” said Kasen. “But not many people know it was her. Not much good as a show of power. Even the most nakedly utilitarian analysis I can ascribe to her creation of Aunn is that she made a beast to bolster Gensokyo’s piety. That benefits her, in a roundabout way. Is that such a bad thing?”

Yukari turned back to Kasen and shrugged. “Perhaps she just wanted to make a very nice dog.”

“I don’t know.” There was a softly tortured sort of look shimmering in Kasen’s gaze, still fixed on Aunn. “It makes her actions look less like an incident and more like a cry for help.”

Yukari sighed. So the thought had occurred to Kasen, as well. But it wouldn’t do for a woman like her to martyr herself. “Kasen. Would you, of all people, even want to be that help?”

Kasen glanced back to Yukari, then down at the steps. She shook her head softly. “No. She made sure of that herself. But - there are dimensions to her actions. In the midst of the chaos she sowed, she made a youkai that helps humans.”

“Doesn’t this particular youkai chip in at the Myouren Temple, too?” Yukari interjected. “Not a lot of humans over there.”

Kasen looked unamused by her pedantry. “I’ve sworn myself to help the humans, Yukari. I know that’s not your path. I didn’t think it was hers. I still doubt it is. If you expect me to abandon my ideals just because you regret hurting me…”

“No, no, it’s good you have your ideals,” said Yukari. It seemed Kasen’s pretense had grown into something genuine over their years apart. It was gladdening to see her looking out for Gensokyo’s humans and their station. “But it’s not necessary that measures to help humans and measures to help youkai preclude each other. Seems to me that you’ve always understood that.”

“I simply understand the necessity of temperance and restraint,” said Kasen. The hermit sank into a brief, brooding silence.

“How did you like Heaven, by the way?” asked Yukari, with an innocent tone. She couldn’t help but notice its absence as Kasen spoke of her ideals this time.

Kasen glanced back at her with a flicker of irritation - and underneath it, doubt, perhaps. She sighed and stood. “You know, I never properly thanked Komachi for telling me the way up.”

“Don’t let me keep you, then,” Yukari smiled. She drifted to the side to give Kasen clearance along the path. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.

Kasen made her way back to the others, but paused as she drew level to where Yukari still hung in midair. She looked up. “Be well,” she said.

“You, too,” said Yukari. She watched Kasen return to the others. She drifted slowly back to the ground and sealed her gap of repose.

Certainly, some matters remained unspoken between them. Yukari was not particularly concerned. There would be time to resolve such things, whether in a month, a year, a decade, a century. What form would their society, their Gensokyo, take by then? Would there still be such gatherings at the Barrier shrine? Who could say?

Yukari would remain to see it. This was her home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks to Emberlily for concept and idea collaboration! remember, folks: don't date your coworkers and don't flirt with your exes


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